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ZIP 100




John,
I have been looking into these zip drives, and we are currently testing one,
and have 2 on order.
As for the Design Exchange, we are considering CD Rom's as an avenue for 
distribution of the released drawings. I have a writeable CD unit, costwise
about $2000, but the CD's are only ~$20 each in units of 10. CD's hold ~670MB
of data, so we should be O.K. for a while to come.
We would not have to worry about compressing the data, and it would be in a 
useable format straight from the CD.
I have experimented with the Bernoulli Transportable 150 and the Sun Workstation
and it does not seem to recognize it. I don't know if the Zip would be 
recognized or not, I would have to assume not. Talking to Sun, They said talk toIomega about compatibility software, and talking to Iomega, they said talk to
Sun. 
It is certainly worth the price to have a few of these Zip drives around for 
general purpose use, but I believe the CD is more accepted as a necessity these
days, as you can hardly find a PC compatable offered without one.
Thanks for the info,
John Wammack

> From brite Mon Jul 10 09:31 CDT 1995
> To: pero, wammack
> Subject: from J Quintana
> Cc: brite
> Content-Type> : > text> 
> Content-Length: 3568
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> 
> 
> ----- Begin Included Message -----
> 
> >From jpq@radish.dnd.aps.anl.gov Sat Jul  8 11:49 CDT 1995
> Subject: ZIP 100 Mass Storage
> To: beamline_controls@aps.anl.gov
> Cc: brite@aps.anl.gov
> X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24 PGP2]
> Content-Type: text
> Content-Length: 3259
> X-Lines: 63
> 
> Folks,
> 
> While this isn't quite a 'beamline' controls issue it is a computerish
> problem that I have suffered with for a long time and now there is a cost
> effective solution to it.  I am refering of course to the fact that 3.5'
> floppies breed faster than rabbits around Intel machines.  Iomega
> now has a product they call a Zip Drive which stores about 100 Mbyte
> of data in what looks like a thick 3.5' removable floppy.  They have 
> two versions  (one that runs off a PC printer port and a SCSI-2 version.
> The SCSI zip drive is selectable between device numbers 5 and 6 and uses
> a DB25 connector).  
> Drive cost is $199 and each disk is $19.95 in single quantities and $14.95 in
> a 10 pack.  You do get 1 disk with the drive which contains about 20 megs
> of their own tools/utilities.  If you buy their SCSI card for 50 bucks, 
> you get an Adaptec 1502 SCSI controller so it might be best to purchase 
> a higher end SCSI card if you want to run other SCSI devices.  
> I'm not real sure. The software that comes with the SCSI version has both 
> Mac and Dos software, but be warned:
> 
> When you run the installation on a Dos machine, it wipes out the Mac software
> on the 100 Mbyte disk, so if you want to then use the drive on a Mac,
> you need to purchase another tools disk ($40.00).  Of course, you don't
> find this out until after you install the software.
> 
> They sell various connectors and adaptors for the Mac Powerbook as well 
> as a power supply for international travel (the Zip drive is external 
> and separately powered)  etc...  They do have an installation floppy 
> for OS/2 although it isn't bundled with the drive.   
> 
> I don't know if the final formatted disks are compatible between DOS and Mac.
> 
> Of course, I wouldn't touch this thing if I couldn't use it with a real
> OS and Linux is quite happy with the device and even the Adaptec 1502
> controller once you set up the boot configuration to recognize it
> (the 1502 doesn't autodetect very well).  It has no problem reading and 
> writing the disk as a DOS disk, and rumour has it that you can even 
> reformat it in its own native format.  I'll try that when my other 
> disks arrive.  These disks might 
> be a cost effective solution for Linux-Epics or even Design Exchange 
> updates/distributions since not everyone has access to an Exabyte tape
> drive...  
> 
> Actually, this would be particularly appropriate for the
> APS Design Exchange since all of the dwg files fit in about 286 Mbytes
> uncompressed.  Using pkzip, we should be able to get the files down
> to less than 200 Mbytes so the entire Design Exchange would fit on two of 
> these 3.5' disks, and be directly readable by DOS where a lot of people 
> do AutoCad work.
> 
> In any event, it certainly seems like a fine tool for those who
> want to use Linux and/or Dos/Windows together for mediumish sized 
> projects.  I'm not sure how easy it would be to have a Sun system 
> understand this drive but it might be worth a try.  The price is
> certainly right.
> 
> - John  
> 
> -- 
> John Quintana                          Internet email: jpq@nwu.edu
> DND-CAT Synchrotron Research Center    Voice Phone: (708) 252-0223
> APS/ANL Sector 5, Bldg. 400            FAX Phone: (708) 252-0226
> 9700 South Cass Avenue                 WWW: http://tomato.dnd.aps.anl.gov/~jpq/
> Argonne, Illinois 60439
>