Re: [PARPORT] Zip Plus status


David Campbell (campbell@gear.torque.net)
Tue, 20 Jan 1998 14:32:58 +0000


> Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 22:44:38 -0700 (MST)
> From: Jay Jacobson <nin@goodnet.com>
> To: David Campbell <campbell@gear.torque.net>
> Cc: linux-parport@torque.net
> Subject: Re: [PARPORT] Zip Plus status

>
> Ahh...the one aspect I forgot...compatibility. :) Then I see your point.
> For my case, I still believe my SparQ investment was a good decision -- I
> use the drive to transport files between home and work (work = OC3
> connection : home = 56K -- you see the point :)

The SparQ wasn't around when I was lugging my Masters thesis back and
forth 18 months ago (about 60km round trip). If it was I might of looked
at it. But at that stage 100 Mb seemed like more than I could use. That
outlook lasted approx 20 minutes after I got home (literally that
long!! How true the comment "the steady state of disks is full" :=).

> You mention the 'ruggedness' of the Zip disks.
> What is inside the casing? Is it 'floppy' material?

Yup. Approx 0.2mm (0.01 inch) flexible plastic material, almost identical
to the material in a 1.44 Mb floppy in terms of mechanics. Obviously
vastly different when it comes to magnetic density. I remember Iomega once
indicated it will survive 1000 g (10 foot drop onto concrete).

> One of the first things I noted about the SparQ is that inside
> the disk is not floppy -- it is actually remniscent of a hard-drive
> platter. Is the Zip a hard-metal platter also (I don't know about Zip, but
> I think Jaz uses platter(s)).

The JAZ drive uses platters, hence the little padded boxes for the media.
I have yet to hear any horror stories about mailing "aluminium plater"
catridges unprotected. (This covers basically the entire SyQuest range,
Iomega Jaz). I wonder if anyone has found out how sensitive these disks
are by the hard way (ouch!).

Aluminium is a wonderful material to fabricate with but it suffers one
main problem is that it does not have an elastic range (that is it will
not spring back perfectly to its original shape). This causes problems
with some sports cars (noteably MGs) since even a slight bump is
permenant. Sorry if I am boring you here... I did several units in
mechanical engineering as part of my Chemical engineering degree (needed
for designing chemical equipment).

David Campbell
=======================================================
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dcampbel@p01.as17.honeywell.com.au (For all other mail)

Just when you thought you have seen every possible
parallel port chipset there is, some manufacturer comes
out with a new quirk. Just to make things worse, every
mainboard manufacturer on the planet decides to use it.

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