1. Background

2. MiniScribe

3. CoData (Conner Peripherals)

4. PrairieTek

5. Postscript

6. References

Founder of MiniScribe,
Co-founder of CoData/Conner),
Co-founder of PrairieTek

Terry Johnson (March 14,1935 – July 24, 2010) was an engineer and entrepreneur in the 1980s working in the area of data storage on hard disk drives (HDD). After a stint with the US Navy as an electronics technician (1954–57), he earned degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Utah (BS 1961) and UC Berkeley (MS 1963). Johnson's early career included engineering and management roles in magnetic recording at IBM (1964–70) and Memorex (1971–73). He left Memorex to join in the development of "SuperDisk", a high-end, rotary actuator HDD funded by StorageTek and, in 1975, he relocated to Colorado. In 1980, Johnson left StorageTek to found a startup, Miniscribe, a manufacturer of 5.25 inch HDDs. In 1985, he started another new company, Co-Data, that subsequently merged with Conner Peripherals in 1986. Co-Data's 3.5-inch drive became Conner's first product. In 1985, Johnson co-founded PrairieTek, the first maker of 2.5 inch drives. Terry Johnson died in the Northwest Territories, Canada, when his private aircraft crashed during his return from a canoe trip.

Background

Terry Johnson..^[1][2] was born in Ogden, Utah on March 14, 1935. On graduating high-school, he signed up for four years with the US Navy as an electronics technician. Johnson earned a Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Utah in 1961 and a Master's degree from the UC Berkeley in 1963. After graduating from UC Berkeley, he joined IBM in San Jose, California. Seven years later, Johnson followed Al Shugart from IBM to Memorex. Several of Johnson's colleagues at Memorex also went on to found startups that became successful companies^[1]

After two years at Memorex, Terry Johnson, together with Jim Morehouse, left to join Roy Applequist.^[3] at startup "Disk Systems" funded by tape storage powerhouse StorageTek to develop SuperDisk, four packs of magnetic disks with a single rotary access mechanism in the middle of the packs^[4]

^[6].

The complexity of SuperDisk pushed the state of the art and StorageTek leveraged its right to acquire the startup and produce the STC 8800 Superdisk^[7]. Johnson and most of the Disk Systems team relocated to Colorado. Over the next five years he advanced to Director of Engineering at StorageTek. In 1980, Johnson left StorageTek. In May of that year, he attended the National Computer Conference (NCC) at Anaheim with Roy Applequist. Finis Conner^[8] had rented suites at a hotel at NCC to showcase the newly-developed Shugart Technology's ST506^[9] drive. Admission to the suite was by invitation only. Terry Johnson obtained an invitation. During their discussion, Shugart encouraged him to start his own company building a competitive product^[1].

MiniScribe

The new venture, MiniScribe, did not get off to a good start. Only one of the three StorageTek engineers expected to join Miniscribe turned up for the first day of work in the basement of Terry Johnson's house. Several more were encouraged to join over the next few weeks, but it was the decision by John Squires^[10] to join that marked the transition to a functioning technical team. To complement John Squires, Johnson drew on Roy Applequist's expertise for the mechanical configuration of the drive (Applequist had remained in San Jose when Disk Systems relocated to Colorado).

Convincing vendors to supply components was a difficult task, and remained that way until Johnson managed to encourage some New York-based VCs (Venture Capitalists) to take a chance on funding Miniscribe. None of the VCs in California had been interested.

A sales call at Tandy marked a major turning point for MiniScribe. The TRS-80 home computer had been a resounding success for Tandy. The executive who met with John Squires specified what characteristics he wanted in a disk drive, (which bore little resemblance to the prototype MiniScribe was offering). When Squires returned to Colorado, Johnson gave him free rein to design exactly what Tandy wanted.

It was a good decision. The Miniscribe 2 or 2012^[11] became the product which IBM shipped in the PC XT. IBM needed a second source to Seagate, and had no recourse but to deal with Johnson's struggling private company. The IBM contract underpinned the IPO (Initial Product Offering) that raised more than enough capital to invest in building manufacturing capacity. Less than a year later however, IBM cut back its orders, and Miniscribe was suspended from trading. When trading resumed, the company's value had dropped to half, and Johnson decided to step aside^[12].

CoData (Conner Peripherals)

A few months later John Squires also left Miniscribe, and the pair decided to form CoData and build a 3.5" disk drive. The prospects of raising capital for a new disk company in 1985 were low, so, after Squires completed an initial design, Johnson called in Finis Conner to improve the prospects. Connor's reputation as co-founder of Seagate, coupled with his sales skills, proved to be the right solution. CoData and Conner Peripherals merged in 1986 and Squires' design of the Co-Data drive became their first product^[13]. John Squire's design of the CP340^[14] set a new high for integrated control over disk drive dynamics by microcode. Meanwhile, Johnson noted that "Co-Data became Conner Peripherals and when Finis came in the front door, so to speak, I went out the back door." Johnson held 7% of the Conner stock at the time it went public in 1988^[15].

PrairieTek

Terry Johnson's reaction to losing Co-Data was to entice Disk Systems cohort Jim Morehouse to join him in founding PrairieTek in 1986 to build a 2.5" drive, a new form factor^[16] aimed at the emerging laptop market. Computer companies were pursuing smaller size, lower weight, and longer battery life. Established disk companies recognized the need for something smaller than the 3.5" disk drive, but lack of resources or inertia was delaying development on their part and Johnson saw an opening for this new kind of disk drive. Simply scaling down a 3.5" design was not an answer for the laptop market where shock-resistance and power-consumption were key. The technical team at PrairieTek were able to design a drive which set the direction for successive generations of all disk drives^[17][18]. Ramp Load/Unload was a key feature of PrairieTek drives^[19][20]

But being early to market with a good new design was not enough. To quote from "The Innovator's Dilemma^[21]: "In 1989 an industry entrant in Longmont, Colorado, Prairietek, upstaged the industry by announcing a 2.5-inch drive, capturing nearly all $30 million of this nascent market. But Conner Peripherals announced its own 2.5-inch product in early 1990 and by the end of that year had claimed 95 percent of the 2.5-inch drive market. Prairietek declared bankruptcy in late 1991, by which time each of the other 3.5-inch drivemakers—Quantum, Seagate, Western Digital, and Maxtor—had introduced 2.5-inch drives of their own."

Demand for 2.5" drives skyrocketed but PrairieTek went from being the 1989 leader in shipments to #3 in 1990 to bankruptcy court in 1991^[22]. The market moved too fast for an under-capitalized company, the first generation was barely into production before demand shifted to more than twice the capacity. The annual DiskTrend^[23] report listed PrairieTek as shipping 20,000 <30MB drives in 1989 and one year later 15,000 60-100MB drives had been shipped by Conner. PrairieTek held over 83% of the <30MB market in 1989 and 14% in 1990 just before the company closed. Johnson did not blame his competitors for the company's demise, but saw it as a failure to execute on his own part.

Postscript

Johnson maintained a continuing interest in the industry but did not start any more new ventures. His success as an entrepreneur was always tinged with disappointment. Miniscribe continued to grow after Johnson left until it dissolved in the biggest scandal.^[24] of the storage industry. Johnson's initiative to build a microprocessor-driven disk drive eventually turned into a large successful corporation but under a different leader (Finis Conner). Finally, the technology achievements set by PrairieTek were marred by commercial failure.

An avid fisherman, Terry Johnson died when piloting his plane back from a trip to Canada in 2010^[25][26]. He was survived by his wife of 48 years, Edeltraud, and his three children^[27]

References

• Zoltan Silvashi
• Zoltan Sylvashi
• Zoltan Szilard
• Zoltan Sztarcsevics
• Zoltan Takacs
• Zoltan Tildy, Jr.
• Zoltan Torok
• Zoltan Török
• Zoltan Vamos
• Zoltan Vamoş
• Zoltan Vamoș
• Zoltan Vancso
• Zoltan Wladar
• Zoltan Zebik
• Zoltan Zinn Collis
• Zoltan Zsitva
• Zoltan Zubornyak
• Zoltar (Battle of the Planets)
• Zoltar (disambiguation)
• Zoltar (fortune telling robot)
• Zoltar Speaks
• Zolt Balazs
• Zoltex
• Zoltán Agócs
• Zoltán Berkes (disambiguation)