Promise Technology

Promise holds an impressive track record of design innovations and product introductions since its founding in 1988. Promise Technology was the first company to produce IDE disk accelerators worldwide, is the world's largest supplier of VESA disk controller chips, and produces the greatest number of disk accelerator products for end users and OEM manufacturers than any other company. Today, the company is regarded as the leader in EIDE/ATAPI controller technology.

With headquarters in San Jose, CA, Promise Technology created and has maintained market superiority in disk caching controllers for several years. The adoption of the Windows® standard for PC-based business computing and the continuing need for ever more responsive disk access helped Promise Technology exceed its own growth projections in every single product category - expanding operations in Europe, the United States and Asia. The rapid development of EIDE / ATAPI devices required innovative controller and BIOS upgrade solutions in which Promise Technology has advanced the state-of-the-art.

Promise Technology has established a series of product highlights in its eight-year history. In its first year, Promise pioneered disk accelerators for the older MFM technology. In 1990 Promise delivered the world's first disk accelerator. In 1991 the company developed a world standard by offering users of its disk accelerator products both increased disk access response and a full set of I/O ports. In 1992 we introduced the Van Gogh and Tiger chipsets for the high performance VESA bus. Promise became the largest supplier of VESA disk controller technology in the world. Promise now is represented worldwide through several prominent distributors in the U.S, Europe, Asia and Australia. In 1994, we introduced the industry’s most popular EIDE disk controller for VESA, the EIDE2300PLUS and developed key industry marketing alliances with Western Digital & Seagate.

In 1995 Promise broadened its base and created more awareness for its advanced disk accelerator and new disk controller products. We introduced the world’s first EIDE caching controller for VESA EIDE4030PLUS and produced a powerful universal EIDE BIOS upgrade kit for any system (EIDEMAX). Promise continued to expand its distribution base into the top tier national distributors.

For 1996, Promise again extended its commitment to performance products while stamping its mark as the recognized leader in EIDE / ATAPI controller technology. Most recently, Promise developed and introduced FLOPPYMAX, the world’s first bootable ATAPI controller for LS-120 (120MB) drives -- a market category with huge growth potential. Creating FLOPPYMAX far ahead of motherboard BIOS manufacturers and all other disk controller companies clearly demonstrates the company’s EIDE / ATAPI leadership in supporting the millions of installed PCs and billions of existing floppy diskettes.

Promise also announced products in another major disk drive growth area -- low-cost EIDE RAID architectures – with the FastTrak 4-drive controller (RAID Levels 0 & 1) and its 5-or-10 drive RAIDe PRO subsystems. To satisfy the booming reseller and industry demand for configuring systems with Enhanced IDE drives, Promise created its low-cost Octet™ series of disk drive duplicators. The company also brought out an ISA motherboard controller based on its EIDE2300PLUS series, called EIDEPRO, to meet the huge PC upgrade market for older ISA-based systems. And Promise has expanded its product line to offer high performance product alternatives to the SCSI host adapter market. The company’s Premier SCSI Series™ bus master host adapter line for PCI provides a low-cost alternative to expensive namebrands with feature-for-feature product benefits.

The company is also positioning itself as a leader in yet another major product area – the wireless peripherals category. Promise and industry are predicting the 2.4GHz wireless peripherals market to deliver major sales in 1997 through 2000. Promise recently began shipping the first of these key wireless productivity products with the wirelessPRINT™ printer sharing system. WirelessPRINT provides an innovative, performance alternative to networks or other peripheral sharing options.

Truly Promise is living by its name and delivering on those promises as it heads into 1997.

Products

• Promise Technology EIDE Pro
• Promise DC4030VL-1
• Promise DC4030VL-2
• Promise FastTrak 100 TX2
• Promise FastTrak
• Promise 3D WebSound
• Promise SCSIMAX
• Promise LCS-6941
• Promise SuperIDE DC-200

Disk Gallery

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Small Computer System Interface

Peripheral Component Interconnect