known the name was continued through the follow on products. The Hardcard II and Hardcard II XL were advertised with effective access times as a result of the disk cache. The Hardcard II listed both times, but Hardcard II XL only listed the effective access time. The Hardcard EZ line returned to listing the access times without the benefit of the cache. All Hardcard products up to and including Hardcard II XL were produced under the Plus Development name. The Hardcard EZ was released under the Quantum name after Quantum absorbed the wholly owned subsidiary Plus Development. Competition Within one year of the Plus Development introduction of Hardcard, 28 companies had released similar products. At that time, all of the other products were using a standard hard drive with a 1.6-inch height forcing the card to hang over the adjacent PC slot. The hard drive was located on the opposite side away from the connector sometimes enabling a short half-length expansion card to be installed in the adjacent slot. These hard drive cards were usually described as occupying 1.5 expansion slots. Below are some of companies and product names with a similar product to the Plus Hardcard. JVC (Japan Victor Company) Kamerman Labs, (Beaverton, Oregon) – Slot Machine Maynard Electronics, (Casselberry, Florida) – On Board Microscience International Corp, (Mountain View, California) – EasyCard Mountain Computer Inc., (Scotts Valley, California) – DriveCard Qubie Distributing, (Camarillo, California) – Hardpack Tandon Corporation, (Chatsworth, California) – DiskCard, Business Card Verbatim Corporation, (Sunnyvale, California) – Data Bank Western Digital, (Irvine, California) – FileCard Tandy 1000 In 1985, Tandy introduced the Tandy 1000. Tandy offered a proprietary 20 megabyte hard card for $799. An 8-bit ISA slot was required to accommodate a hard card, preserving the drive bays for disk drives and CD-ROMs. The 8-bit slots were electronically compatible, but the computer could only hold a card up to 10 1/2 inches long. As a result, many hard cards such as those offered by Plus development were 13 inches long, and hence were not compatible. Hard cards had to be certified as Tandy compatible, meaning they fit in a Tandy 1000 model such as the SX, TX, SL, and TL series. A hard card must be no more than 10 inches long and use an 8-bit ISA interface to work in a Tandy 1000 computer. Usually, the card must be installed in slot 1 due to