Conner Peripherals

Defunct computer storage company

Conner Peripherals, Inc.

Company type| Private
Industry| Hard disk drives
Founded| June 1985; 40 years ago (1985-06) in San Jose, California, United States
Founder| Finis Conner
Defunct| 1996 (1996)
Fate| Acquired by Seagate Technology
Headquarters|

San Jose, California

United States

Conner Peripherals, Inc. (commonly referred to as Conner), was a company that manufactured hard drives for personal computers. Conner Peripherals was founded in 1985[1] by Seagate Technology co-founder and San Jose State University alumnus Finis Conner (1943– ).[2] In 1986, they merged[3] with CoData, a Colorado start-up founded by MiniScribe founders Terry Johnson and John Squires.[4] CoData was developing a new type of small hard disk that put the capacity of a 5.25-inch drive into the smaller (and now commonplace) 3.5-inch format.[4]

## Hard disks

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### Design concepts

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Conner Peripherals HDD with 213 MB capacity

Conner's drives were notable for eschewing the "tub" type of head-disk assembly, where the disks are inside a large base casting shaped like a square bowl or vault with a flat lid; instead, they preferred the flat base plate approach, which was more resistant to shock and less likely to warp or deform when heated.[5] Their first drives had the base plate carrying the disks, head arm and actuator enclosed inside a long aluminum cartridge, fixed to a bulkhead on the other side with two screws and sealed with a large, square O-ring.[5] Conner's 1/3-height (1-inch thick) drives used a domed, cast aluminum lid with four screws, one on each corner, sealed to the base plate with a rubber gasket. The printed circuit board was bolted to the bottom of the base plate, with the mounting holes for the drive drilled into tabs cast into the sides of the base plate.[6] This design would be Conner's trademark look well into the 1990s.

Logically, Conner's drives had some of the characteristics of the original MiniScribe drives (of which John Squires had also been a designer), with a large amount of intelligence built into the drive's central processing unit (CPU); Conner drives used a single Motorola 68HC11 microcontroller, and ran a proprietary real-time operating system that implemented the track-following algorithms (the "servo" system) in software, as well as managing the bus interface.[7]

## Corporate history

[edit]

Conner Peripherals "Chinook" drive with clear top cover

Conner Peripherals was founded in June 1985 and located in San Jose CA. However it did not produce any product until after it merged into and with CoData, Boulder, Colorado, in February 1986.[8] It began shipping its first products based upon the CoData design in early 1987, initially to Compaq.[8] During calendar 1987 Compaq represented about 90% of Conner Peripheral's sales.[8]

In 1990, Conner Peripherals set a record by reaching $1.337 billion in sales in four years, without acquisitions, making it the fastest-growing manufacturing start-up in United States history.[9]

## Further reading

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* Pollack, Andrew. A Novel Idea: Customer Satisfaction, The New York Times, 27 May 1990, page F1.

## References

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1. ^ Riser, J., "Computer Memories Names New CEO," Electronic News, September 23, 1985, p. 21.
2. ^ Finis F. Conner, born 28 July 1943 in Gadsden, Alabama
3. ^ Computer System News and Electronic News, Feb 1986
4. ^ a b Johnson, Terry (2016-08-25) [2016-08-24]. Porter, Jim (ed.). "Oral History Of Terry Johnson" (PDF). Mountain View, California, USA: Computer History Museum. X3703.2007. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-04-02. Retrieved 2017-04-02.
5. ^ a b US patent 5029026, "Disk drive architecture", issued 1991-07-02, assigned to Conner Peripherals, Inc.
6. ^ US patent 4965684, "Low height disk drive", issued 1990-10-23, assigned to Conner Peripherals, Inc.
7. ^ US patent 4979056, "Disk drive system controller architecture", issued 1990-12-18, assigned to Conner Peripherals, Inc.
8. ^ a b c Conner Peripherals Prospectus, April 12, 1988
9. ^ Langan, Patricia A., America's Fastest Growing Company, Fortune, August 13, 1990

## Bibliography

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* International Directory of Company Histories, Vol. 6; St. James Press; 1992.

## External links

[edit]

* Fundinguniverse.com: History of Conner Peripherals, Inc.

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