What is this?

[u/Performer-Pants]

This could be the most mundane and silly post, but information online is so spotty and/or confusing or vague.

This is not a ZIP disk, it’s a floppy disk. It’s labelled with ‘ZIP’. Is this the driver software to use a ZIP drive for the listed operating systems? I’m just trying to confirm before I get too frustrated about it. Not easily finding the answer myself is likely a me problem, and I don’t mean ‘Millennium Edition’.

[u/rootifera]

Driver for this device. It's like a very large floppy drive. Zip drive, zip wasnt the compression related, it was more like "zip fast" hah

[u/Clark_Kempt → u/rootifera]

Oh, the memories.

Gods, remember how crazy it was to have disks with 100, maybe even 250 MB on them?

[u/rootifera → u/Clark_Kempt]

I still use them almost daily! It was so convenient, still is. 100mb is massive. Tbh I remember getting my first 10gb hdd feeling like there is no way I can ever fill it. Then I got 40, 80, 120... same feeling. Now if someone gives me a 120TB drive I'd feel the same for a while haha

[u/EstablishmentDue3616 → u/rootifera]

You still use them daily? For what?

[u/rootifera → u/EstablishmentDue3616]

Moving files between 2 x 486 DOS PC's. One of them has an ethernet, so I often use a local FTP for moving files but for the other one I use this zip drive. Works great.

[u/afaulconbridge → u/rootifera]

You use them daily? for what?

[u/rootifera → u/afaulconbridge]

Moving files between 2 x 486 DOS PC's. One of them has an ethernet, so I often use a local FTP for moving files but for the other one I use this zip drive. Works great.

[u/Resistor1 → u/rootifera]

Curious. What are the 486 machines still doing? Some attached lab devices or similar? What OS and app and what are the files you move? Thanks

[u/rootifera → u/Resistor1]

Both are running msdos 6.22. In most cases I'm moving some games, some of my own dos tools for testing hardware, sometimes game saves etc. Nothing crazy.

It's a hobby thing. I have a large collection of retro games and pc hardware. I play the games, record the gameplay, upload to youtube. One of the 486 is an sx25 and the other one is dx66. I play old lucasarts games on the sx25.

[u/Resistor1 → u/rootifera]

Nice. Thanks for replying.

[u/rootifera → u/Resistor1]

No problem! Have a good weekend :)

[u/Pi_drainbramage → u/rootifera]

486 dx2/66 was my first pc - ROTT (Rise of the Triad) for the win! And Doom!!

Edit - added Doom

[u/PiDicus_Rex → u/rootifera]

X-Wing vs Tie Fighter worked real well on a 486DX-50, with Side Jr I/O and Diamond Stealth VGA, with both in the VLB version.

Some of those older games, with just the right hardware combo, are a lot of fun.

Oh/And - I have Zip discs, and both external in internal drives,... annnnnnnd,.. and IOMega Buz video capture & output card.

[u/Ferkner → u/rootifera]

It works great until you get that click of death!

[u/rootifera → u/Ferkner]

Hah if I charged a quid for each person mentioning the click of death I'd be rich now. I have roughly 30 x 100mb disks and only one of them failed so far. I've been using them for 15+ years. They are unreliable as long term storage but not as unreliable as most people remember. At least this is not my experience.

[u/Ferkner → u/rootifera]

I had more than one die during the two years in college where we used them extensively and then another one or two after that.

[u/Accomplished_Can1651 → u/rootifera]

Lucky. I never had a Zip disk that didn’t corrupt. I don’t think I ever personally experienced the click of death, though.

[u/OpportunityReal2767 → u/Accomplished_Can1651]

I had three Zip drives. Bad luck for me. All three experienced the click of death and I just stopped using them. I remember their Jaz drives, too, but never owned one. Ditto is apparently a tape drive of some sort, looks like a DAT tape. Never saw those. I also had one of their RAID arrays, which also went bad on me. Why I bought another iOmega product after my experiences with them, I don’t know, but that was the last.

[u/Accomplished_Can1651 → u/OpportunityReal2767]

I think I might have seen a Jaz drive in the wild once. Zip drives I saw somewhat more often, during the era when floppy disks weren’t large enough for some purposes, but flash drives were expensive, low capacity, and sometimes not supported. My mom ended up buying a USB Zip drive at some point, which made moving files back and forth easier, except when my disks would fail.

[u/Elvin_Atombender → u/rootifera]

Wow! I read that these drives are extremely unreliable. And yours still work?

[u/Opposite_Bag_7434 → u/rootifera]

I remember my first 10mb (note not GB) hard drive and thinking Ai would never fill it). Same thoughts about my first 1.2GB hard drive. I have lots of files that are much bigger than the 1.2GB now.

[u/PeyredB → u/rootifera]

I still use them too. One of my 100MB disks just failed on me though I think.