TECHNOLOGY - July 29, 1992

Ardat Ships DAT Drives: Ardat Inc., a subsidiary of Archive Corp. in Costa Mesa, said it has begun shipping computer storage equipment based on digital audiotape technology to Digital Equipment Corp.

Together with other deals to sell Archive Python DAT drives to other computer companies, Ardat expects the agreement to generate $25 million in revenue over the next year, the company said.

The Python drives can store anywhere from two to eight gigabytes of data on digital audio tapes, which are based on the same technology as videocassette recorders. A gigabyte is as much data as would fit on 700,000 single-spaced, typed sheets of paper.

Ardat has been selling DAT drives for three years.