Rodime was an electronics company specialising in

hard disk 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 platters coated with magnet ...

s, based in Glenrothes, Scotland. It was founded in 1979 by several Scottish and American former employees of Burroughs Corporation and listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1986, becoming Rodime PLC. Rodime produced a wide range of hard disks, initially 5¼-inch

form-factor Form factor is a hardware design aspect that defines and prescribes the size, shape, and other physical specification (technical standard), specifications of components, particularly in consumer electronics, electronics. A form factor may represe ...

ST506 The ST-506 and ST-412 (sometimes written ST506 and ST412) were early hard disk drive products introduced by Seagate in 1980 and 1981 respectively, that later became construed as hard disk drive interfaces: the ST-506 disk interface and the ST-41 ...

-compatible devices, but later launching the world's first 3½-inch hard disk, as well as producing

SCSI Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, ) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, electrical, optical and logical interface ...

and ATA drives. Of particular note, Rodime produced the hard disks used in

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...

's first external hard drive for the Macintosh, the Macintosh Hard Disk 20, which connected to the external floppy disk drive port found on Macintosh computers from that period. Due to increasing competition and delays in developing new products, Rodime became unprofitable after 1985, and a financial restructuring package was put in place in 1989. However, in 1991, Rodime ceased manufacturing and was reduced to a holding company which continued to pursue patent

litigation - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...

against other hard disk manufacturers such as

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and Seagate. Some ex-Rodime engineering staff went on to form Calluna Technology, which specialised in 1.8 inch

PC Card In computing, PC Card is a configuration for computer parallel communication peripheral interface, designed for laptop computers. Originally introduced as PCMCIA, the PC Card standard as well as its successors like CardBus were defined and devel ...

form-factor hard disks. In 2000, Rodime PLC performed a reverse takeover of the

Littlewoods Littlewoods was a retail and football betting company founded in Liverpool, England, by John Moores in 1923. By the 1980s, it had grown to become the largest private company in Europe, but subsequently declined in the face of increased com ...

gaming business, thus changing its principal business to gaming and betting. Soon after, it changed its name to

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References

* * * Computer storage companies Defunct computer hardware companies Defunct technology companies of the United Kingdom Computer companies established in 1979 British companies established in 1979 1979 establishments in Scotland {{UK-company-stub