Caelus Memories, Inc., was an American computer hardware company active from 1967 to 1985 and based in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially the City of San José ( ; ), is a cultural, commercial, and political center within Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area. With a city population of 997,368 and a metropolitan area population of 1.95 million, it is ...

. The company focused on the manufacturing of magnetic data storage media, primarily

disk pack Disk packs and disk cartridges were early forms of removable media for computer data storage, introduced in the 1960s. Disk pack A disk pack is a layered grouping of hard disk platters (circular, rigid discs coated with a magnetic data storage ...

s. For a time, it was the second-largest manufacturer of disk packs in the world, designing units plug-compatible with

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

and

Univac UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) was a line of electronic digital stored-program computers starting with the products of the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation. Later the name was applied to a division of the Remington Rand company and ...

mainframes. In 1969, Caelus was acquired in whole by Electronic Memories & Magnetics; the latter was later acquired by Titan Systems in 1985.

History

Caelus Memories was principally founded by Philippe Yaconelli in 1967 in

. Yaconelli had previously worked for

Memorex Memorex Corp. began as a magnetic tape, computer tape producer and expanded to become both a consumer media supplier and a major IBM plug compatible peripheral supplier. It was broken up and ceased to exist after 1996 other than as a consumer el ...

, where he was one of their first employees, working in Memorex's sales division since 1962. With several other employees from

, including William Benz, Sung Pal Chur, and William Sousa, Yaconelli founded Caelus with $200,000 of their own capital, with a further $1.8 million supplied by Electronic Memories & Magnetics (EM&M), a computer memory firm also based in San Jose. Whereas EM&M was a more-diversified firm producing magnetic tape subsystems,

core memory Core or cores may refer to: Science and technology * Core (anatomy), everything except the appendages * Core (laboratory), a highly specialized shared research resource * Core (manufacturing), used in casting and molding * Core (optical fiber), ...

, and expansion cards in service of data storage devices, Caleus was chiefly focused on

hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

products, namely

s. In September 1967, the company began pilot production of disk packs plug-compatible with IBM's offerings, occupying a facility in San Jose that cost the founders $750,000 to build. Yaconelli described their relationship with IBM as symbiotic in 1967, with the latter eager to supply the licenses for their disk pack patents. Helped by this relationship, Caleus became the second-largest manufacturer of disk packs in the world by July 1968, trailing only IBM. This was only five months after achieving full-scale production from their San Jose facility. The company both sold their drives to end users via distributors as well as taking volume orders from OEM resellers. With a capacity to manufacture up to 40,000 packs per year, Caelus generated roughly £2 million in revenues in less than a year after opening. Caelus' steady rise was punctuated by their acquisition in full by EM&M in January 1969. The terms of the acquisition were reportedly $3 million in a

stock swap In corporate finance, a stock swap is the exchange of one equity-based asset for another, where, during the merger or acquisition, the swap provides an opportunity to pay with stock rather than with cash; see . Overview The acquiring company ...

. Following the acquisition, Caelus became a subsidiary of EM&M. Yaconelli left to found his second venture, Katun Corporation, a systems integration company, in San Jose. He eventually returned to Memorex, becoming their VP of marketing. The company shirked developing any Winchester-style drives, preferring to stay loyal with traditional disk packs despite Winchesters steadily overtaking market share since its invention in the early 1970s by IBM. In 1976,

Sperry Rand Sperry Corporation was a major American equipment and electronics company whose existence spanned more than seven decades of the 20th century. Sperry ceased to exist in 1986 following a prolonged hostile takeover bid engineered by Burroughs ...

acquired Caelus' San Jose factory from EM&M for an undisclosed sum. Caelus continued to operate as a subsidiary from EM&M's Encino headquarters but stagnated until 1978 when EM&M charged the executive Ed Farris with a turnaround of the division. Caelus continued to lead the disk pack market until their parent company EM&M was acquired by Titan Systems in 1985.

References

{{Hard disk drive manufacturers 1967 establishments in California 1985 disestablishments in California American companies established in 1967 American companies disestablished in 1985 Computer companies established in 1967 Computer companies disestablished in 1985 Computer storage companies Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer companies based in California Defunct computer hardware companies