HEWLETT PACKARD SUPPORTS FLOPTICAL TECHNOLOGY FOR WORKSTATIONS

Cupertino, CA -- November 16, 1992 -- The Floptical Technology Association
(FTA) today announced that Hewlett-Packard Co., Palo Alto, CA, will
support 21MB Floptical technology as a high capacity removable storage
solution for its PA-RISC workstations.

Under an agreement coordinated by FTA founding member and Floptical
diskette manufacturer 3M, St. Paul, MN, Hewlett-Packard will develop the
driver software required for compatibility with the HP Apollo 9000 Series
700 workstation family. The two companies have also agreed to a joint
marketing effort for the new Floptical product capability.

As part of the agreement with 3M, Maynard Electronics, based in Lake Mary,
FL, will manufacture and market an external Floptical subsystem as the
first supplier to the HP market.

Maynard, a division of tape drive manufacturer Archive Corporation, will
manufacture the Archive SF21e 21MB external subsystem. The external system
is expected to be available to Series 700 users in the first quarter of
1993. Maynard's Archive SF21e Floptical storage system will be sold
through Maynard's worldwide network of dealers, distributors and
value-added resellers and will be covered by the company's comprehensive
technical support program.

HP's Mike A. Gallup, worldwide marketing manager for HP's Workstation
Systems Group, said, "HP regards the 21MB Floptical diskette technology to
be a superior solution for high-capacity floppy diskettes, based on
affordability, compatibility and performance. The pairing of 21MB
technology with the high-performance Series 700 family will provide users
with an even more powerful, versatile tool for both commercial and
engineering applications."

Jim Milligan, program manager, advanced diskette technology, 3M, stated,
"HP's support of Floptical technology for its workstation product line is
an indication not only of its emergence as the widely accepted
high-capacity floppy standard, but its appeal to users in a broad range of
markets. As users operating in other environments have already found, 21MB
Floptical technology meets their most pressing need - greater removable
storage capacity in a downward-compatible system."

Capable of storing nearly 14 times more data than a conventional 1.44MB
diskette, 3M Floptical Diskettes are designed for use with drives based on
Floptical technology developed by Insite Peripherals, San Jose, CA. The
diskette capacity allows computer users to easily and cost-effectively
manage personal files, distribute software applications and large files,
archive infrequently used data and applications, and extend the life of
hard drives. Floptical media is ideal for such data-intensive applications
as graphics, multimedia, CAD/CAM, desktop publishing and large file text
storage. 3M Floptical Diskettes have been available through the company's
traditional distribution channels since August of this year.

The Series 700 is a broad family of RISC-based workstations designed for
both the engineering and nonengineering applications. The Series 700
workstations are based on HP's superscalar PA-7 100 chip, which delivers
up to 147 SPECmark 89. PA-RISC, Precision Architecture-RISC, is HP's
reduced instruction set computing technology.

Maynard is a global leader in backup systems with annual sales in excess of
$175 million. Maynard offers a complete selection of cassette, cartridge,
minicartridge, 4mm DAT, and 8mm tape drives for IBM-compatible PC, PS/2,
RISC System/6000, DEC, NeXT, Sun Microsystems and Apple Macintosh
computers.

3M is the world's largest supplier of flexible magnetic media 3M
manufactures and markets the computer industry's most comprehensive line
of removable storage media, including 3.5-inch and 5.25-inch diskettes,
quarter-inch data cartridges, half-inch computer tape, IBM and Digital
compatible half-inch cartridge media, CDROM and rewritable-optical disks.

Floptical Technology Association
21710 Stevens Creek Blvd, Suite 220, Cupertino, CA 95014
408-446-0407,  Fax: 408-446-0450

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