Talk:Western Digital

Part of an edit requested by an editor with a conflict of interest has been implemented.

Hi! It's been a few years, but I'm working with Western Digital again and have some updates to request for this article. I've broken them out by section. I'm also happy to reformat or reorganize these requests however is helpful. -- Mary Gaulke (talk) 14:05, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered.

Hi! Per the feedback above, starting a new discussion to share my proposed updates to the "History" section of this article in more granular detail. Starting with the 1970s subsection, here are the edits I propose to the current article text:

More information Current article text, Proposed revision ...

Current article text

Proposed revision

This section needs additional citations for verification. (January 2019) Western Digital was founded on April 23, 1970, by Alvin B. Phillips, a Motorola employee, as General Digital, initially a manufacturer of MOS test equipment.[1] It rapidly became a speciality semiconductor maker, with start-up capital provided by several individual investors and industrial giant Emerson Electric. Around July 1971, it adopted its current name and soon introduced its first product, the WD1402A UART. The company was financed by Emerson Electric and investors, to sell calculator chips through the early years of the 1970s, and by 1975, Western Digital was the largest independent calculator chip maker in the world. The oil crisis of the mid-1970s and the bankruptcy of its biggest calculator customer, Bowmar Instrument,[2] changed its fortunes, however, and in 1976 Western Digital declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. After this, Emerson Electric withdrew their support of the company. Western Digital introduced several products during the late 1970s, including the MCP-1600 multi-chip, microcoded CPU. The MCP-1600 was used to implement DEC's LSI-11 system and their own Pascal MicroEngine microcomputer which ran the UCSD p-System Version III and UCSD Pascal. However, the WD integrated circuit that arguably drove Western's forward integration was the FD1771,[3] one of the first single-chip floppy disk drive formatter/controllers, which could replace significant amounts of TTL logic.

This section needs additional citations for verification. (January 2019) Alvin B. Phillips founded Western Digital was founded on April 23, in 1970, by Alvin B. Phillips, a Motorola employee, as General Digital.[4][5] The company, initially (and briefly) a manufacturedr of MOS test equipment. It rapidly became a speciality semiconductor makercomputer chips, particularly calculator chips, with start-up capital provided by several individual investors and industrial giant Emerson Electric.[6] One year later, the company Around July 1971, it adopted its current name[7] and soon introduced its first product, the WD1402A, the first single-chip universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART).[8] Later that decade, the company debuted a 4K RAM chip.[7] The company was financed by Emerson Electric Company and investors, to sell calculator chips through the early years of the 1970s, and by 1975, Western Digital was the largest independent calculator chip maker in the world. The oil crisis of the mid-1970s and the bankruptcy of its biggest calculator customer, Bowmar Instrument,[2] changed its fortunes, however, and in 1976 Western Digital declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. After this, Emerson Electric withdrew their support of the company. Note: The source from this paragraph is available online here, but it doesn't mention Western Digital. Western Digital introduced several products during the late 1970s, including the MCP-1600 multi-chip, microcoded CPU. The MCP-1600 was used to implement DEC's Digital Equipment Corporation's LSI-11 system.[9] and their own Pascal MicroEngine microcomputer which ran the UCSD p-System Version III and UCSD Pascal. However, the WD integrated circuit that arguably drove Western's forward integration was The processor was also used in several single-chip floppy disk drive controller chips, including notably the FD1771,.[3] one of the first single-chip floppy disk drive formatter/controllers, which could replace significant amounts of TTL logic.

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Here's a clean preview of the new text I propose. Here's a rundown of the individual edits:

• Rewording first sentence in active voice
• Adding sources and revising the text to the reflect those sources
• Deleting redundant information on Emerson Electric and information cited to a source that doesn't mention WD
• Deleting {{More citations needed}} section template

As always, I won't be editing the article directly due to my COI. Happy to reformat these requests however is helpful. @P,TO 19104, A D Monroe III, Hubcapp, and Barkeep49: Notifying you since you've all been involved in reviewing my recent edit requests. Thank you for any help or feedback! Mary Gaulke (talk) 16:54, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

My wiki time is limited so I will not have a chance to review this change for at least a week. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:05, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I strongly oppose the removal of references to bankruptcy. Here is what I was able to come up with and this should be included as it's part of the history.

"In May 1976, the fist of a series of financial problems that would eventually drive Western Digital into bankruptcy was disclosed. Electronic News, May 10, 1976:58. The firm blamed losses of $433,000 for the first 1976 quarter on technical problems in its microprocessor and 4K DRAM programs."
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_International_Dynamic_Random_Access/A_e1AAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22into%20bankruptcy%22

"HISTORY Western Digital was founded in 1970 as a manufacturer of specialized semiconductors and electronic calculators. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late 1976. However, it reorganized and emerged successfully in 1978 ."
Hoover's Handbook of American Business. United States: Reference Press, Incorporated, 1998, page 1514

"[W]hen it lost its main customer Bowmar Instrument in 1976 it declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. However at the same time the company was saved by innovating the WD 1771, the first single-chip floppy disk controller. "
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Competitiveness_of_Clusters_in_Globa/lr5YCwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=1976+%22western+digital%22+bankruptcy&pg=PT205&printsec=frontcover

Graywalls (talk) 16:21, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

More fantastic sources on this matter:

• https://books.google.com/books?id=M8uwmICKZwMC&lpg=RA6-PA2&pg=RA6-PA2#v=onepage&q&f=false
• https://books.google.com/books?id=M8uwmICKZwMC&lpg=RA6-PA7&pg=RA6-PA7#v=onepage&q&f=false

I don't understand. Why are you suggesting to remove it???? Graywalls (talk) 09:12, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

@MaryGaulke:, In case you're not watching the page. Graywalls (talk) 06:11, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm opposed to treating these many different and significant changes to history section as a single change for discussion. If forced to do so, I'm opposed to the changes. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 21:20, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Hi! Please forgive the delay in my response.

@Graywalls: I first worked up these revisions almost two years ago, and I can honestly say I don't remember the specifics of my research process on this exact project, but my primary goal was to address the {{more citations needed}} flag by either adding sources or removing unsourced information. Clearly, I did an inadequate job searching for alternative sources for the bankruptcy, and for that I apologize. (I'm sure I attempted it at the time, but my skill in these matters is always improving with additional experience, as with any Wikipedian.)

I took another attempt at updating the second paragraph of this section:

The company was financed by Emerson Electric and investors, to sell calculator chips through the early years of the 1970s, and by 1975, Western Digital was the largest independent calculator chip maker in the world. The oil crisis of the mid-1970s and the bankruptcy of its biggest calculator customer, Bowmar Instrument, In 1975, Bowmar Instruments, Western Digital's main calculator chip customer, filed for bankruptcy;^[1] changed its fortunes, however, and in 1976 Western Digital in turn declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1976.^[2] The company reorganized and reemerged in 1978.^[3] After this, Emerson Electric withdrew their support of the company.

Let me know what you think. A clean mockup is here.

@A D Monroe III: I completely understand your frustration with the scope of these requests. However, I'm not sure what is a better alternative when an article is tagged as needing substantial improvement. Submitting each minor tweak through the edit request queue separately seems like an inefficient way to go about the process, especially when the needed improvements are more holistic.

I also find different reviewers have different preferences for how edit requests are formatted, so I'm always happy to make any adjustments to how I present my requests to suit those preferences. I completely understand that you and everyone who reviews my requests are doing me a favor, and I want to make the process as frictionless as possible. Would it be preferable to go one paragraph at a time? If so, I can start a new request for just the first paragraph of this section.

Thank you both, again, for your time. Mary Gaulke (talk) 21:14, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Massive changes with only vague generalities for reasons is usually unacceptable for any editor for any article. When COI is involved, even more scrutiny is needed, which requires clear and specific reasons for each change. Trying to avoid this is precisely what has made this particular process so inefficient. "Holistic" changes aren't going to work here.

Any reduction in the scope of the change to be discussed will be a step in the right direction, so one paragraph at a time might be better. However, given our track record here, I'm dubious that will be sufficient for progress. I'd suggest focusing on each reason for each change. For example, Rewording first sentence in active voice; that is one reason for one change. Following that, where changes are done per sources given, perhaps present each source and detail what it says first, and leave off suggesting any detail on what specific edit to make. I and my fellow experienced WP editors are quite capable of taking it from there, avoiding any COI worries.

BTW, on that first reason given, history and passive voice go hand-in-hand in WP. True details of actual events are almost always far too complicated to assign to a single agent. So, avoiding the passive voice isn't an improvement here. I'd skip that change.

--A D Monroe III^(talk) 02:23, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Where are WD production plants located? --0dorkmann (talk) 11:40, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

@ 58.145.191.253 (talk) 20:41, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I found a fact that might belong in this article. See the quote below

As announced on October 30, 2023, Western Digital plans to separate its HDD and Flash businesses, creating two independent, public companies

The fact comes from the following source:

https://www.westerndigital.com/en-gb/support/website-separation?utm_campaign=B2CSiteLaunch24&utm_content=FAQ&utm_term=09-30-2024&cp1=UK&cp2=C&utm_medium=eml1&utm_source=acs&deliveryName=DM745240

Here is a wikitext snippet to use as a reference:

 {{Cite web |title=Website Separation |url=https://www.westerndigital.com/en-gb/support/website-separation?utm_campaign=B2CSiteLaunch24&utm_content=FAQ&utm_term=09-30-2024&cp1=UK&cp2=C&utm_medium=eml1&utm_source=acs&deliveryName=DM745240 |website=Western Digital |access-date=2024-09-30 |language=en |quote=As announced on October 30, 2023, Western Digital plans to separate its HDD and Flash businesses, creating two independent, public companies}} 

This post was generated using the Add A Fact browser extension.

Hiddensea (talk) 08:48, 30 September 2024 (UTC)