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lostwonder ( lostwonder@beehaw.org )  to Technology · 8 months ago

From Zip To Nought: The Rise And Fall Of Iomega

hackaday.com

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  • cross-posted to:
  • retrocomputing@lemmy.sdf.org
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From Zip To Nought: The Rise And Fall Of Iomega

hackaday.com

lostwonder ( lostwonder@beehaw.org )  to Technology · 8 months ago
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  • cross-posted to:
  • retrocomputing@lemmy.sdf.org
If you were anywhere near a computer in the mid-to-late 1990s, you almost certainly encountered a Zip drive. That distinctive purple peripheral, with its satisfying clunk as you slotted in a cartri…
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  • cecilkorik ( cecilkorik@lemmy.ca ) 
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    8 months ago

    I still remember all the data I lost when the drive embedded its entire head assembly into the disk I was using. Fuck Iomega.

  • Em Adespoton ( adespoton@lemmy.ca ) 
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    8 months ago

    Despite the fact that click death was avoidable with a simple bracket OR an updated driver AND only affected their very first product, I won’t really miss them.

    If Jazz drives had been their first product and at a reasonable price point, things probably would’ve gone differently for them.

    • rozodru ( rozodru@piefed.world ) 
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      8 months ago

      yeah at the time I REALLY wished I knew the easiest fix was a stupid bracket I wouldn’t have gone through so many. I loved my zip drive but after like the 4th or 5th one dying on me I gave up.

  • BCsven ( BCsven@lemmy.ca ) 
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    8 months ago

    I’m still running a 2010 Iomega NAS. Swapped the Lenovo OS that they updated it to to plain Debian, because the “upgrade” from Iomega OS to the version they released under Lenovo had ads in the admin menus.

  • t3rmit3 ( t3rmit3@beehaw.org ) 
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    8 months ago

    IMO the Zip disks, Jaz disks, and MiniDiscs were the last really satisfying physical media formats (UMD was also really cool, but somehow even more niche given it was PSP-specific).

    There was something about them that just made you feel like a secret agent using them. Like a prop out of a James Bond movie where the villain keeps their plans.

    CDs and DVDs had nothing on them.

  • bad_news ( bad_news@lemmy.billiam.net ) 
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    8 months ago

    deleted by creator

    • Phoenixz ( phoenixz@lemmy.ca ) 
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      8 months ago

      Meaning?

      • entropicdrift ( entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org ) 
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        8 months ago

        You’ve never heard of the ancient rite of pouring out some booze for a fallen friend/ally, I take it?

  • Powderhorn ( Powderhorn@beehaw.org ) 
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    8 months ago

    One of the designers I worked with my first year at the college paper went on to design the packaging for Zip and Jaz drives. It paid well enough that he was able to afford to buy a condo in San Diego in his early 20s.

  • coalie ( coalie@piefed.zip ) 
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    8 months ago

    I miss my Zip drives.

  • ProfTriathlon ( ProfTriathlon@midwest.social ) 
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    8 months ago

    I have a zip drive in a closet with a zip disk with most of my class work from college.

    • org ( org@lemmy.org ) 
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      8 months ago

      I worked in the tech dept at my school part time and I got to keep all the Zip disks that had no name and no one claimed after the end of the semester.

      I had shelves.

      • Ebby ( Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com ) 
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        8 months ago

        I maintained a Mac lab and all the computers had built in zip disks. I didn’t get any leftovers, but had a bunch loaded with media on slow days.

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