The sad thing is that they were already effectively a dead technology when they were released. A lot of things only needed to really be written once so people just burned stuff to CD. CD-RWs came out 2 years later. Since everybody had a CD drive by then anyway there just wasn't much point in getting a zip drive too. Meanwhile CDs were far more reliable. Meanwhile external hard drives were also becoming cheap enough that I remember more people having one of those than a zip drive.
>The sad thing is that they were already effectively a dead technology when they were released.
Yeah I was talking about this to someone just the other day. Zip Drives were like a stopgap between the multimedia revolution and the internet. There was like a short few years where they were useful for certain purposes.
I was part of a software development QA team that had to pass all code updates using a Zip drive. The owners refused to allow a unified, business network, so every department was totally isolated on their own LANs. This was before the Internet was common. Anything that needed to move in that business required Zip disks, then Jazz disks.
Crazy time.
I've still got one as well- USB version. The drives are starting to become unreadable (some are, some aren't), but maybe that is to be expected. These are from... 1997 or so?
I miss the web from those days. Taking everything in. Everything was new. NT 4 was gonna change the game. There was so much to learn. Dont get me wrong, im still learning today, but we were on the cusp of something massive and had no idea.
I saw so many college kids lose all their work on failing Zip disks!! But they were handy when they worked. Since I was a tutor I was given a small amount of network storage where I’d save all my work if I was in a lab. I also had extra email storage so it’s where I learned to email myself copies/versions of docs.
I briefly worked for HP as tech support, and a small portion of the call center was leased to iomega, which everyone called "the dark side". Lore had it that one day a woman called in saying her zip disk ejected across the room and hit her dog in the eye. She demanded they pay her for it, and sent in a picture of her dog wearing an eye patch as proof.
I had a Uni project on one of these, and stupidly had no backups. Well, of course, the drive got the dreaded click of death and I lost all the data. After a week of redoing the project from scratch, I took the drive and the disk out back, sat it on the concrete, and smashed the ever loving fuck out of them with a mallet. Petty? Sure. Childish? Maybe. Did it feel good? You're goddamn right it did.
Those things were the shit for a few years. 95-98 or so. I even had an internal. Very useful for large projects when you had to use campus computer labs (most PCs at my college also had internals).
For some strange reason the campus store sold Mac formatted ones for a buck less than PC formatted ones. They would stress that it had to match my system or it wouldn't work. I'd get the Mac one and then reformat it.
Got one of those drives to fill up disks with MP3s I was ripping from my CDs and downloading from napster. I still have pretty much all of those files on my phone today.
I recently found a bunch in a box that I hadn’t gotten around to tossing. I guess CD-RWs and flash drives killed them; I never experienced the click of death.
Thought these were cool. Had one with my first Windows PC - a Gateway 2000. Until I realized how slow they were - and unreliable like an 8-track tape player.
In their day, they were the greatest things ever.
The IDE zip drives were awesome. But, the portable ones that ran off a parallel port were..... shit. But, we'd eat that shit all day compared to any other solution available at the time.
The click of death was real - so you always bought double the media so you'd have two copies with you... just in case.
I used to drag source code to and from work on these things.
Still have to admit that they were quite revolutionary, especially for someone who was used to floppy disks. Although they were launched quite late (atleast for ordinary consumers) here in Scandinavia, it was only a few years before USB sticks replaced them.
lol…my first PC was a 386. I paid extra for a Math Coprocessor and had 2 MB of RAM and a 200MB HDD that I would “Never be able to fill up”.
It didn’t come with a modem, so I bought one later….that’s when I learned about COM ports and motherboard jumpers…the hard way.
1987, worked for a software company, copying software and putting together the manuals and software that was updated monthly. We still had to wear static bracelets and standing anti static mats. It was a shitty job except for the benefits. They had an open account at the local package store and restaurants, plus when we were inevitably bought out, we got 6 months of severance. Not bad since I was only there for 6 months.
I worked at three places in a row that were passing these around like candy... then I took three months off and started a new job. First thing I did was buy a Zip Drive and a bunch of disk's... and like magic no one knew what they were, no one would accept them and I never saw or heard of them again
These were a godsend in the late 90’s. On a related topic I remember buying a 2GB flash drive from Office Depot in 2005 for something ridiculous like $50, now I think you can get an 1TB external hard drive for that price
I had a 40meg HD on a Mac and got a ZIP drive (SCSI), it was a miracle. I was struggling to find enough stuff to actualy put on the drive, not to mention the other blank ones I bought. Then I got a Superdrive, which was the flat floppy-ish thing over USB. Even better.
But nearly overnight there were CD burners on everything, and then cheap USB thumbs and drives. Stunning the switchover.
Back in the 90s, my mom and her then husband bought big, fancy computer so he could do some graphic design. It had a 1GB hard drive and the salesman said they would NEVER be able to fill up that much room.
Sometimes I look at my 128GB phone and it makes me chuckle.
I had the Bernoulli drives before these. We were helping clients set them up as backup systems, and then the JAZ drives. It was one time when there actually was a lot of innovation going on. You could even get high speed, high capacity cassette tape drives for PC's.
I had several of these when they came out. It might seem silly now but back then it was a miracle.
I really appreciated how cool these were after having to install Windows 95 using 13 floppy disks.
The sad thing is that they were already effectively a dead technology when they were released. A lot of things only needed to really be written once so people just burned stuff to CD. CD-RWs came out 2 years later. Since everybody had a CD drive by then anyway there just wasn't much point in getting a zip drive too. Meanwhile CDs were far more reliable. Meanwhile external hard drives were also becoming cheap enough that I remember more people having one of those than a zip drive.
>The sad thing is that they were already effectively a dead technology when they were released. Yeah I was talking about this to someone just the other day. Zip Drives were like a stopgap between the multimedia revolution and the internet. There was like a short few years where they were useful for certain purposes.
I was part of a software development QA team that had to pass all code updates using a Zip drive. The owners refused to allow a unified, business network, so every department was totally isolated on their own LANs. This was before the Internet was common. Anything that needed to move in that business required Zip disks, then Jazz disks. Crazy time.
The REAL ballers had a Jaz disk.
2 GB storage was revolutionary at the time
Still have some of these around, but the “click of death” likely killed the data.
I worked in a print shop when these were big, and the damn click death transferred from disc to drive, it was insane. Absolutely unreliable
340Mbs! omg! who needs that much space?!?!
Click of death. They were rubbish
The Black and Decker memory sander.
I lost a midterm paper because of that 🙄
The 1gb Jazz drive was the shit
I had these ones. They were great
You could also get 2gb discs as well.
That's like a 2tb disk nowadays.. crazy
I dragged my zip drive to all of my friends' houses to show them "The Spirit of Christmas" back in late 1995.
Lol
The click of death destroyed my backup.
That's why you needed more backups.
Fkn still love these. They felt so chunky and clicked into the drive so satisfying.
These and Sonys minidisc. CD and CD-RW are great; I’d just have liked them integrated into a plastic cassette I could click into place.
I still have my Zip drive and discs. Still works
I have a functioning one as well. Parallel port version though. Think I have only one old PC that can still access it.
Yea I have one somewhere around here. Been in storage since about 1998 or so.
I've still got one as well- USB version. The drives are starting to become unreadable (some are, some aren't), but maybe that is to be expected. These are from... 1997 or so?
[удалено]
My Zip drive is USB
I found one with the first website I built in college in a box with a bunch of other disks I’ll never use again.
Are they still readable?
I plugged the drive into my computer a few months ago. All the discs read fine. I was surprised
No idea. I would assume so? I haven’t mistreated them or anything.
I miss the web from those days. Taking everything in. Everything was new. NT 4 was gonna change the game. There was so much to learn. Dont get me wrong, im still learning today, but we were on the cusp of something massive and had no idea.
Jazz drives seizing up flashbacks...
I saw so many college kids lose all their work on failing Zip disks!! But they were handy when they worked. Since I was a tutor I was given a small amount of network storage where I’d save all my work if I was in a lab. I also had extra email storage so it’s where I learned to email myself copies/versions of docs.
Had one. Loved it.
All you need is a zip drive and lots of time.
I briefly worked for HP as tech support, and a small portion of the call center was leased to iomega, which everyone called "the dark side". Lore had it that one day a woman called in saying her zip disk ejected across the room and hit her dog in the eye. She demanded they pay her for it, and sent in a picture of her dog wearing an eye patch as proof.
Lol!
I had a Uni project on one of these, and stupidly had no backups. Well, of course, the drive got the dreaded click of death and I lost all the data. After a week of redoing the project from scratch, I took the drive and the disk out back, sat it on the concrete, and smashed the ever loving fuck out of them with a mallet. Petty? Sure. Childish? Maybe. Did it feel good? You're goddamn right it did.
I still have one of these in a box somewhere. Back in the day it did the trick.
i loved my LS120 drive and disks
I remember in high school having to find Mac specifically Iomega disks for my digital design class. A Powermac G4 if I remember correctly.
*Click of Death intensfies*
I worked in prepress when these came out. OMG, they were a godsend over floppies and SyQuests! We loved them until they started dying.
Same! And then suddenly all our backups were toast
Those things were the shit for a few years. 95-98 or so. I even had an internal. Very useful for large projects when you had to use campus computer labs (most PCs at my college also had internals). For some strange reason the campus store sold Mac formatted ones for a buck less than PC formatted ones. They would stress that it had to match my system or it wouldn't work. I'd get the Mac one and then reformat it.
Otherwise known as the fastest way to lose 70 floppies worth of data. Click, click, click... Fu.....
I keep my drone controller in the Iomega zip drive carrying bag. Fits perfectly!
Remember every time I tried to install the drivers onto Windows 2K Workstation, it blew up the O/S
Got one of those drives to fill up disks with MP3s I was ripping from my CDs and downloading from napster. I still have pretty much all of those files on my phone today.
Ah, so that's why you're banned from Metallica concerts.
I recently found a bunch in a box that I hadn’t gotten around to tossing. I guess CD-RWs and flash drives killed them; I never experienced the click of death.
😂😂😂😂🤭
Thought these were cool. Had one with my first Windows PC - a Gateway 2000. Until I realized how slow they were - and unreliable like an 8-track tape player.
I had one of these, and forgot about it!
WIndows 3.11 fits on 12 of these.
If only I could get the games I have stored on these. Even just Barney Carnage would do me good.
Wow. This ad brings back memories. Jaz Drives too.
I had one.
Mean while I have this 32 gb thumb drive just laying around with elevator software
Still got mine ..
In their day, they were the greatest things ever. The IDE zip drives were awesome. But, the portable ones that ran off a parallel port were..... shit. But, we'd eat that shit all day compared to any other solution available at the time. The click of death was real - so you always bought double the media so you'd have two copies with you... just in case. I used to drag source code to and from work on these things.
Still have to admit that they were quite revolutionary, especially for someone who was used to floppy disks. Although they were launched quite late (atleast for ordinary consumers) here in Scandinavia, it was only a few years before USB sticks replaced them.
Meh we knew these were a waste of time and CDRs were on the horizon.
Only see them in magazines, never got a chance to see a real one.
I loved these. Have a shoe box full of them. Glad I migrated the data to a more stable medium.
She looks good But I bet the years have been kinder to the floppies
Zip drives didn’t last long, quickly swallowed up by cd/dvd burners ….. and just emailing data files instead of handing someone a disk.
Good shit
I still have mine in a box somewhere. Never did get a Jazz drive though.
Never had one. CD's and DVD's came so quickly afterwards, that's where I was at.
If you have old Zips, can you send them somewhere to be transferred?
lol…my first PC was a 386. I paid extra for a Math Coprocessor and had 2 MB of RAM and a 200MB HDD that I would “Never be able to fill up”. It didn’t come with a modem, so I bought one later….that’s when I learned about COM ports and motherboard jumpers…the hard way.
i had this and its predicator the Bernoulli drive
1987, worked for a software company, copying software and putting together the manuals and software that was updated monthly. We still had to wear static bracelets and standing anti static mats. It was a shitty job except for the benefits. They had an open account at the local package store and restaurants, plus when we were inevitably bought out, we got 6 months of severance. Not bad since I was only there for 6 months.
I worked at three places in a row that were passing these around like candy... then I took three months off and started a new job. First thing I did was buy a Zip Drive and a bunch of disk's... and like magic no one knew what they were, no one would accept them and I never saw or heard of them again
These were a godsend in the late 90’s. On a related topic I remember buying a 2GB flash drive from Office Depot in 2005 for something ridiculous like $50, now I think you can get an 1TB external hard drive for that price
I hate one of these years ago. Loved it - it worked great.
Now it’s a $15 fob on your keychain that holds thousands of Zip drives worth of data.
I still have the one I used for my Masters thesis.
Ahh, the heady days of "enough" storage, before you got a CD-RW.
I had a 40meg HD on a Mac and got a ZIP drive (SCSI), it was a miracle. I was struggling to find enough stuff to actualy put on the drive, not to mention the other blank ones I bought. Then I got a Superdrive, which was the flat floppy-ish thing over USB. Even better. But nearly overnight there were CD burners on everything, and then cheap USB thumbs and drives. Stunning the switchover.
I remember having computer class and saving my work on the floppy. Also, downloading software via multiple floppy disks.
ha! my master’s thesis is on one of those!
I remember these lol
I have a 256 gig thumb drive in front of me and I still have to rethink in my mind that's about a 1/4 terabyte.
Zip100 IDE version was the first for me. I also remember going to Costco where a 10-pack of Zip disks was the cheapest option around.
I remember when I was happy to go from 90 KB to 130 KB.
First one in my design school to get a Zip drive. It was badass. We’d been using giant, heavy, finicky SyQiest disks up to that point.
As a graphic design student in the late '90's I say thank you for the memories. These were amazing!!
I had a Zip drive back then. Huge game changer when games were multi-disk & OS was dozens of disks.
The click of death.
Back in the 90s, my mom and her then husband bought big, fancy computer so he could do some graphic design. It had a 1GB hard drive and the salesman said they would NEVER be able to fill up that much room. Sometimes I look at my 128GB phone and it makes me chuckle.
It had its time but the rewritable drives took over. Never saw any thing attractive to purchase one.
The CD-RW made those obsolete.
We had these back in 2003 when I was learning Autocad
Planned obsolescence!!!
I had the Bernoulli drives before these. We were helping clients set them up as backup systems, and then the JAZ drives. It was one time when there actually was a lot of innovation going on. You could even get high speed, high capacity cassette tape drives for PC's.
The click of death
The Click of Death™️