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Fred C Thomas III

Fred Thomas was a principal inventor of the Floptical laser servo writer - LightSaber.Floptical refers to a type of floppy <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_drive">disk drive</a> that combines magnetic and optical technologies to store data on media similar to standard 3+1⁄2-inch <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk">floppy disks</a>. The name is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmanteau">portmanteau</a> of the words &quot;floppy&quot; and &quot;optical&quot;. It refers specifically to one brand of drive and disk system, but is also used more generically to refer to any system using similar techniques.The original Floptical technology was announced in 1988<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floptical#cite_note-Webber_1988_Insite-1">[1]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floptical#cite_note-Kotkin_1988_Insite-2">[2]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floptical#cite_note-Brownstein_1988_Insite-3">[3]</a> and introduced late in 1991[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed">citation needed</a>] by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Insite_Peripherals&amp;action=edit&amp;redlink=1">Insite Peripherals</a>, a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venture_capital">venture funded</a> company set up by Jim Adkisson, one of the key engineers behind the original 5+1⁄4-inch floppy disk drive development at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shugart_Associates">Shugart Associates</a> in 1976. The main shareholders were <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxell">Maxell</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iomega">Iomega</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M">3M</a>.