LabelOnce since 1989
LabelOnce® was developed to address the aggravation of playing tug of war (see photo) with standard paper labels for computer storage media. Although the initial erasable label product in 1988 was for 3.5" floppy disks, it was adapted beginning in the 1990s to cover a variety of data storage media and later for file folders, food storage, and more.
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The LabelONCE name simply means to apply a super smooth synthetic label to something only once. Then make clean, smear resistant erasures of permanent marker ink when needed. With a single permanent label there is less temptation to mark-out, peel-off, or make layers. In short, it's instant neatness.
The original 3.5" disk label product was sold direct to consumers in the MacWorld Expo booth of Multicomp Inc (a Texas company incorporated 1988) at San Francisco's Moscone Center. It was January 1989. The initial trademark on the red cylinder package was Cates Erasable Labels™ which became LabelOnce a few months later. Most Macworld attendees were surprised to learn this process was not a "whiteboard" dry erase process.
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By the end of the year MacUser magazine listed LabelOnce in their Top 20 Computer Accessories for 1989. Consumer word of mouth was starting to build through Macintosh user groups. What was needed, though, were retailers to stock LabelOnce.
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In early 1991 CompUSA began stocking LabelOnce erasable labels for 3.5" and 5.25" floppy disks. In 1992 Staples office superstores began stocking several LabelOnce disk media SKUs and retained them nearly to year 2000.
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Not surprisingly Label Once was further adapted to provide permanent label solutions for file folders, food containers, hanging file folders, metal surfaces, and more. All based on the almost instantly neat function of combining carefully tested synthetic label materials, label adhesives, permanent markers, and non scuffing erasers.
Typical OEM paper labels such as these were a boon to users who loved guessing the file contents on computer storage media. LabelOnce meant less temptation to guess.
In the 1980s and 1990s the usual label suspects for "I'm ready to pull my hair out labels" were for 3.5 floppy diskettes, 5.25 floppy disks, 4mm DAT tapes, mini-data cartridges, Syquest cartridges, Jazz disc, iOmega Zip disks, etc. LabelOnce products were made to fit all of the removable media shown here. Users now had a permanent solution to keeping media better cataloged instead of playing tug of war with stubborn paper labels.