Anybody still use zip?
-
The Apprentice
- 128-bit
- Posts: 960
- Joined: Sun May 13, 2007 3:52 pm
- Location: Wishing I was in California again
Anybody still use zip?
I was walking to the garage throw a soda can in the recycling bin when I notice something on top of a box I had never seen before. I pick it up and there is a slot on the front with a logo that says "ZIP". I imediatly remembered the Dreamcast Zip drive so I knew what it was. I hunted down the parts and now I have an old Zip 100 drive on my PC. Anybody else use these anymore? I think their pretty cool.
Hatta wrote:Die Hard Arcade has Deep Scan in it. That's like retro inside retro. They must have heard we liked retro (dawg).
Jrecee wrote:What I like to do is knit little sweaters to put on the games.
-
lordofduct
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 2907
- Joined: Sat Apr 01, 2006 12:57 pm
- Location: West Palm Beach
I have a PC with a Iomega Zip100 drive on it. Don't really use it much, my step mother used it for giving her accountant tax documents when she was alive. She could never really get her mind around CD-Rs (and she bought it before CD burning was fast or anything).
It was a pretty cool device. Very useful for its time, but today, nah, I can carry a small stick that fits 20 to 50 times the storage space... and transfers said data 3 times faster.
I also have one of those tape drives. It can handle 20 gigabyte tapes. But again, I have a terrabyte raid 5 running in the other room. Much faster and much larger, and I can serve directly off it, instead of having to unload each tape to a buffer partition and then look at it and if it wasn't on that tape I'd have to repeat and look.
It was a pretty cool device. Very useful for its time, but today, nah, I can carry a small stick that fits 20 to 50 times the storage space... and transfers said data 3 times faster.
I also have one of those tape drives. It can handle 20 gigabyte tapes. But again, I have a terrabyte raid 5 running in the other room. Much faster and much larger, and I can serve directly off it, instead of having to unload each tape to a buffer partition and then look at it and if it wasn't on that tape I'd have to repeat and look.
-
The Apprentice
- 128-bit
- Posts: 960
- Joined: Sun May 13, 2007 3:52 pm
- Location: Wishing I was in California again
The main reason I use it is because one of the disks I found in the garage was a file of about 60 or so pictures of me and my brother about 7 years ago. All of those would have been lost if they had been on a CD for that long in the Floridian heat. Unfortunately the disk died right after I got the files off, but at least I have them.
Hatta wrote:Die Hard Arcade has Deep Scan in it. That's like retro inside retro. They must have heard we liked retro (dawg).
Jrecee wrote:What I like to do is knit little sweaters to put on the games.
-
lordofduct
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 2907
- Joined: Sat Apr 01, 2006 12:57 pm
- Location: West Palm Beach
Very true, but those Zip drives don't have that long of a life span either. Especially with use.
I live here in FL as well, CD-Rs die QUICK even in dark CD-cases in an air conditioned house. Those zips though I've seen crap in a mere 2 years (about the same average life span of CD-Rs I've seen) when I was in school. In my creative writing/yearbook class we used those for storing data. Our teacher got pissed because of the short lifespan of the VERY expensive disks.
yes... I was in yearbook. Woe is me.
funny thing, despite my being in yearbook. People were still able to make fun of me in the damn thing.
I live here in FL as well, CD-Rs die QUICK even in dark CD-cases in an air conditioned house. Those zips though I've seen crap in a mere 2 years (about the same average life span of CD-Rs I've seen) when I was in school. In my creative writing/yearbook class we used those for storing data. Our teacher got pissed because of the short lifespan of the VERY expensive disks.
yes... I was in yearbook. Woe is me.
funny thing, despite my being in yearbook. People were still able to make fun of me in the damn thing.
I didn't grow up with lots of money around, so we had an old Mac LC II computer with a 40 MB hard drive long after we probably should have had something newer and faster, but I saved up my money and went ahead and bought a Zip drive (came with 1 free cartridge!) and that made a huge difference. The damn removable disk was more than twice as big as the HD. Never bought another disk, either. Just the one that came with the drive. Still have the blasted thing around somewhere...
-
The Apprentice
- 128-bit
- Posts: 960
- Joined: Sun May 13, 2007 3:52 pm
- Location: Wishing I was in California again
lol at marurun's post...
I think these things are still plenty usefull today. If you are making a computer game that is fairly small, rather than deal with the neusance of burning cdr after cdr for every test, or the unreliability and expence of cdrw.
Think about it this way- If the Dreamcast had a zip drive that could boot games, and you needed to test a game you were making 30 times during development you could.. A: Buy a pack of 30 CDRs for $12.60 from sony.com, or B: You could get a single 750MB Zip Disk for $14.99 from iomega.com that could be re-written more than 30 times and saves space on the shelf.
I think that proves the zip drive is still a good option years after it became obsolete.
I think these things are still plenty usefull today. If you are making a computer game that is fairly small, rather than deal with the neusance of burning cdr after cdr for every test, or the unreliability and expence of cdrw.
Think about it this way- If the Dreamcast had a zip drive that could boot games, and you needed to test a game you were making 30 times during development you could.. A: Buy a pack of 30 CDRs for $12.60 from sony.com, or B: You could get a single 750MB Zip Disk for $14.99 from iomega.com that could be re-written more than 30 times and saves space on the shelf.
I think that proves the zip drive is still a good option years after it became obsolete.
Hatta wrote:Die Hard Arcade has Deep Scan in it. That's like retro inside retro. They must have heard we liked retro (dawg).
Jrecee wrote:What I like to do is knit little sweaters to put on the games.
-
metaleggman
- 128-bit
- Posts: 894
- Joined: Sat Nov 04, 2006 7:21 pm
I remember one of the users here used them for a N64 back up device. Other than that, I think a USB drive pretty much stomps ZIP disks in every category. I never had one of these, but I remember like 6 years ago some kid asking if my then like 3 year old computer has one. Lol, I was in utter confusion and just said sure. Lol, would've been pretty useful to have one. I went from transferring NeoGeo games via floppy directly to burning DVDs. Lol, major difference. Kindof like my jump from dial-up to 8mbps cable. Big difference. Tho with internet, I'm always craving more speed. Lol, I want Fios now! I need it! 
That, and from what LoD and a few of my friends have said, Florida is a suckass place to like technology.
That, and from what LoD and a few of my friends have said, Florida is a suckass place to like technology.
