Memorex
More info
- Creator
- Laurence Spitters
- Released
- 1961
- Type
- Storage media
The storage-media company whose ad slogan "Is it live, or is it Memorex?" is better remembered than the company itself.
Memorex was founded in 1961 in Santa Clara by Laurence Spitters and a group of engineers from Ampex. It began with computer tape, moved to disk storage that was plug-compatible with IBM's, and ended up making consumer media: magnetic tape, cassettes and floppy disks. The campaign in which Ella Fitzgerald shattered a glass with her recorded voice — "Is it live, or is it Memorex?" — became a piece of American pop culture.
The business fared worse. The computer-equipment arm was bought by Burroughs in 1981, and the rest merged into Memorex Telex, which went bankrupt in the 1990s. The name lives on as a licensed brand on cheap blank discs and accessories.