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The Floppy Evolution State-of-the-art tech tools

By Amanda C. Kooser

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

It seems floppy disks are slowly going the way of audiocassettes, as high-capacity data drives and CD-RWs take over thedata-storage market. The Maxell SuperDisk Drive is here to make thetransition a little more flexible. The SuperDisk Drive can read andwrite your regular 720KB and 1.44MB floppy disks as well as thenewer 120MB-capacity SuperDisks. The Maxell package includescompression software that extends space to 240MB per SuperDisk.Simple parallel-port installation with your PC desktop system andthe familiar floppy style make the step up to more storage an easyone.

Super Disk Drive

  • Maxell Corp.
  • (800) 533-2836
  • Street Price: $150

Porta-Power

The newest notebook computers are starting to truly live up tothe concept of portability. Case in point: Weighing in at 3 poundsand measuring about one inch high, the Actius A100 UltraLite PCfrom Sharp Electronics is a lot easier on the arm than mostlaptops. And performance isn't sacrificed. The Actius A100comes with an 11.3-inch Active Matrix TFT display, a 233 MHzPentium MMX processor, 64MB RAM, a 3.2GB hard drive and a keyboardscaled to 89 percent of full size. An included lithium-ion batterygives you up to 2.5 hours of computing time. And those of youconducting business presentations will be glad to know the A100 isequipped with an external monitor port.

Actius A100 UltraLite PC

  • Sharp Electronics
  • (800) BE-SHARP
  • Street Price: $2,799

Change Your Spots

Rather than put a tiger in your tank, you can now have a leopardin your laptop. By Shark Multimedia, the Leopard Pocket USB 56KModem is the latest in 56K modems, designed for Universal SerialBus- and Windows 98-equipped notebook and desktop computers. Itssmall size and low cost make it ideal for the road--especially ifyou don't want to haul around a standard clunky external modemor pay the higher price for a PCMCIA card modem. Requiring at leasta Pentium 200 MHz processor and 16MB RAM, the Leopard is packedwith capabilities like voice messaging, automatic paging, voicemail and fax-on-demand. A five-year limited warranty isincluded.

Leopard Pocket USB 56K Modem

  • Shark Multimedia Inc.
  • (800) 800-3321
  • Street Price: $79.95

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