FastBack

<p>FastBack is a software application developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s for backing up <a href="/facts/IBM_PC/yhcJGMPL">IBM PC</a> and <a href="/facts/Macintosh/8GhnXTK0">Macintosh</a> computers. It was originally written by <a href="/facts/Fifth_Generation_Systems/ofWHBjux">Fifth Generation Systems</a>, a company located in <a href="/facts/Baton_Rouge%2c_Louisiana/21SGK7VC">Baton Rouge</a>, <a href="/facts/Louisiana/2GvfFcKE">Louisiana</a>. When the company wanted to expand into the Apple market they purchased and rebranded a product from <a href="/facts/TouchStone_Software/GAFtM26q">TouchStone Software</a> Corporation.
</p><p>The original FastBack was unique in the industry in that it was able to read from a computer hard drive and write to the floppy drive simultaneously using the full capability of the dual-channel <a href="/facts/Direct_memory_access/DWuVgclV">DMA</a> chip found in personal computers of that time. When combined with <a href="/facts/Data_compression/gMFuY4FT">compression</a> techniques and a proprietary <a href="/facts/Disk_formatting/VsSsjdwP">disk format</a> that stored 720KB of data on each 360KB 5¼-inch <a href="/facts/Floppy_disk/rShxfuxa">floppy disk</a> (only in 1.2MB drives), this made FastBack one of the fastest PC backup programs at the time.
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FastBack open-in-new

FastBack