Norris announces Intel Miniature card-compatible operating system

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 9, 1996--Norris Communications Corp. (NASDAQ:NORRF), announced Tuesday that a version of its Flash operating system, or Micro OS, is available for use with the Intel Miniature Card.

The Micro OSi is a compact operating system whose logic is specifically designed to interface with Intel's NOR Flash, the basis of the Miniature Card format.

Skip Matthews, Audio Market Development Manager of Intel Corporation's Memory Components Division, stated: "Norris was the first company to implement solid state audio recording using Intel Flash memory. We are pleased that they plan to extend their technology base to support the use of the Miniature Card format in the development of new business and consumer products."

The Intel Miniature Card is a matchbook-sized memory card, approximately one-fourth the size of standard PCMCIA cards. The Micro OSi provides a file and storage structure to maintain, manipulate and distribute compressed voice, video or data using a file manager API.

The Micro OSi operating system can be used to manipulate, edit, delete, and insert audio, video, data, and/or text in a wide variety of Intel Miniature Card-based products including digital voice recorders, digital cameras, solid-state data recorders, and Flash cards.

Norris Communications is a pioneer in the digital voice recorder market, introducing the first recorder with removable Flash memory modules, called SoundClips, in 1994. The Flashback recorder stores up to 36 minutes of recording time per SoundClip, and incorporates sophisticated data management and editing techniques using Flash memory exclusively.

"Our engineers developed a highly compacted, but powerful 15K Micro OS and microcontroller for use in our Flashback solid-state hand-held voice recorder," said Bob Root, CEO of Norris Communications.

"Future generations of our audio recorders will use ATA interface drives, SanDisk's CompactFlash, and Thin Spin micro hard drives. However, in our recently-formed OEM division, there has been interest in supporting the Miniature Card format. Our OEM division is now working with third parties to support the Intel Miniature Card format, as well as CompactFlash, NAND/NOR Flash, and IDE hard drives," he continued.

San Diego-based Norris Communications Corporation develops, manufactures, and markets sophisticated electronic audio and data storage products. Norris Communications' founder holds more than 100 patents for a wide variety of electronic technologies. Product developers interested in the Micro OSi should contact Roxanne Hoffert, OEM Technical Sales Manager. For further information contact Norris Communications at 619/679-1504 or http://www.norriscomm.com.

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