Interestingly that article says Iomega was working in these five fore the Zip drive and abandoned the idea for Zip, others picked it up and ran with it.

But the article asserts they came out in 1997 - with no citation, and my friend had moved by 1996 so I think that date is off by a year or so. Though given where he worked it’s theoretically possible someone have him a prerelease version as a developer prototype.

Edit: PC Mag claims 1996 https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/ls-120

And the NYT says March 1996: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/11/business/3m-chases-the-dr...