Winstation's 240 MB SuperDisk Drive

I often wonder why computer manufacturers haven't just flat out switched to putting 120 MB or 240 MB floppy drives in their machines. There wasn't a ton of foot dragging in switching from 5.25 floppies to 3.5 floppies and, when it looked like Zip disks were going to be the wave of the future, just about every new machine had one in its belly. Sure, I can swap a new drive into my desktop machine, but the drives would be really useful factory installed in laptops. For all of us who switch back and forth between a laptop and a desktop machine, it's a no brainer that it would make it easier to shuttle files between them. I can do my file swap via USB, but if the files were on a floppy, I could transfer them without even taking the mobile unit out of the bag. Maybe I just don't want to yank apart my laptop to swap out a drive while it's still under warrantee (not all floppy drives just pop right out). Or maybe I'm just a special needs child. Anyway, Winstation just let us know that its standard 1" high IDE SuperDisk drive, with LS-240 technology, is now being offered to OEMs. The new LS-240 is a direct production line replacement for the LS-120. Winstation says the announcement reflects increasing market demand for the Winstation SuperDisk drive, which supports compatibility with 240-MByte and 120-MByte SuperDisk diskettes as well as standard 1.44-MByte diskettes. The Winstation LS-240 SuperDisk is compatible with Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000. The retail version of the Winstation LS-240 SuperDisk drive is the same as the OEM version and includes a drive, one LS-240 diskette, one LS-120 diskette (while supplies last) and an installation manual. The retail package standard 3.5" drive is priced at $189 USD. The LS-240 SuperDisk diskette in three packs is shipping with a suggested retail price at $26.99 USD. Winstation also offers a 12. mm (half-inch) slimline version manufactured by Panasonic for notebooks PCs but (on Winstation's website) it looks like you can only buy ten of them at a time.