|
Guy Axlerod posted:We used zip disks in our acad class in high school. They worked fine as far as I could tell. Some guy had a zip drive at home, and loaded snes emulators and roms onto the disk. Zip wasn't great (sllllooooowwwwwww), but the reliability problems have been massively exaggerated over the years. The infamous click of death only affected drives made in a ~4 month period, and the thing about bad disks destroying drives, which then destroy more disks, etc basically isn't true unless you do it deliberately.
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2022 21:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 6, 2024 15:38 |
|
|
My college gave us the option of either getting ZIP drives or CD Burners for our machines in order to do assignments, and I went with a CD burner that would undoubtedly gently caress up if you even breathed on the mouse while it was burning and I had a huge stack of insanely bad quality CDRs because it didn't occur to me that some brands were better than others. So I made the wrong choice, but had a bitchin' audio CD collection after that year at least.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2022 21:29
|
|
|
At the time I think the speed of Zip disks mattered less because floppies were wildly slow as well, so you may as well keep the slow speed and get like 70x the capacity
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2022 21:30
|
|
|
Sweevo posted:Zip wasn't great (sllllooooowwwwwww), but the reliability problems have been massively exaggerated over the years. The infamous click of death only affected drives made in a ~4 month period, and the thing about bad disks destroying drives, which then destroy more disks, etc basically isn't true unless you do it deliberately.  I also only had like two disks ever I believe
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2022 23:16
|
|
|
Minidisc (or some other magneto-optical disc) would have been absolutely perfect, but no, Sony had to hobble their own format because reasons.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2022 23:29
|
|
|
I had a USB zip 250 drive, it was great. just kidding, it's still great. it and my disks all still work, somehow. but yeah at that time, it was some high tech poo poo, super useful. especially as a teenager without their own PC to really store things on.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2022 23:43
|
|
|
I bought a parallel cable to transfer files between a Windows 95 machine and an early laptop of mine (think it was the Gateway, lol). Floppies were somehow faster. I still have the cable. It's in my obsolete tech box because I like the once-a-year reminder when I rummage through the box that I paid $25 for that cable.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 01:56
|
|
|
I never saw a Zip disk click. I think I have a USB Zip drive I snagged when my grandma was going to throw it out. Just in case.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 02:00
|
|
|
I never had a problem with Zip drives, and had one on my personal machine in that span of time before CD burning became cheap and ubiquitous. And I definitely remember the pain of slow, finicky CD burns, racking up a whole stack of coasters from bad burns on early CD burners. I still use optical from time to time - at least once or twice a year I'll burn a CD to keep in the car or something.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 05:52
|
|
|
i burned cds constantly. was very proud to give bootleg CDs to friends, I even made custom printed labels 
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 06:05
|
|
|
OTOH, I was very glad the day I realized boot from USB was nigh-universal and I would never burn another cd again and pulled my DVD-R for good.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 07:05
|
|
|
Some of the vehicles I have to use for work don't have Bluetooth stereos or have ancient crappy Bluetooth stereos but they can pretty much all handle mp3 on CD, so I'll burn myself mixes for longer drives. Somewhere around here I have a whole spindle of old Linux distros burned to CD, going back to the early 2000s. I keep it around pretty much purely out of nostalgia.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 07:34
|
|
|
LifeSunDeath posted:i burned cds constantly. was very proud to give bootleg CDs to friends, I even made custom printed labels I did the same at uni, even with release notes and nfo filez. Created my own 'release group' of sorts for the fun and to feel like I was somebody.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 10:53
|
|
|
Zip disks were a thing in the advertising industry well into the early 2000s because they were still the best way to easily transport large print layouts etc. Soon USB sticks and fast internet made them obsolete, but they lived on in some industries well after they were dead for the consumers. I remember getting an internal Zip drive for my new home computer back then because I needed them often enough.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 13:13
|
|
|
Humphreys posted:I did the same at uni, even with release notes and nfo filez. Created my own 'release group' of sorts for the fun and to feel like I was somebody. I never understood those nfo files. Did they have a specific usage, outside of advertising the 'release group' ?
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 14:13
|
|
|
Chikimiki posted:I never understood those nfo files. Did they have a specific usage, outside of advertising the 'release group' ? They also have all the info about whatever the thing you just downloaded is and how to install it/apply cracks, or what format/bitrate/codec etc it is if it’s video or audio. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.nfo History Comes Inside! has a new favorite as of 14:23 on Mar 17, 2022 |
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 14:20
|
|
|
Chikimiki posted:I never understood those nfo files. Did they have a specific usage, outside of advertising the 'release group' ? Self aggrandisement mostly. But also some technical information about the release, shout-outs to other groups and occasionally scene drama and farewells. E: might actually be scene rules that every release had to have a .nfo maybe tight aspirations has a new favorite as of 14:23 on Mar 17, 2022 |
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 14:21
|
|
|
Jim Silly-Balls posted:I’ve had good luck with them, oddly (now I just jinxed the 5 pack sitting on my desk) Yeeeeaaaahhhhhhhh. Turns out I didnt jinx the disks, but instead jinxed both drives? Both of them power on, the green and orange lights come on (not sure if this is normal), and when I put a disk in, it does nothing and the drive wont eject it  The DOS drivers cant find a Zip drive to assign a drive letter to either, and now two of my 5 disks are stuck in drives Ughhhhh, I just want to move some files that are larger than floppy capacity, without a CDR drive. I have a hard time believing that both drives are broken in the exact same way, but two different computers have the same issues with not assigning drive letters to them, and both drives have two lights on and refuse to eject the disks. I tried a couple of different parallel cables too, to the same result
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 14:21
|
|
|
History Comes Inside! posted:or what format/bitrate/codec etc it is if it’s video or audio. Which was REALLY important back in the day before VLC came around and could just play everything. You had to have the right codec installed and all that
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 14:22
|
|
|
They’re basically just READMEs as written by the kid at the back of the classroom who drew all over every page of his notebooks.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 14:25
|
|
|
NFOs actually have to be laid out in a specific way, because sitescripts will use them to relay information into IRC. First time I laid one out I did not know this, and the channel bot was just '????'. Same with SFV, which was more for verification on sites with people racing the files than for end users.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 14:27
|
|
|
EL BROMANCE posted:NFOs actually have to be laid out in a specific way, because sitescripts will use them to relay information into IRC. First time I laid one out I did not know this, and the channel bot was just '????'. Same with SFV, which was more for verification on sites with people racing the files than for end users. And originally they were about 40 columns wide because in the dominant BBS softwares you'd have the screen split in half between the file names and the info. I really miss BBS's Every BBS had it's own feel and userbase and there was a great feeling of discovery when you dialed random numbers from a list you found and came across a cool BBS. 
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 15:18
|
|
|
Definitely, my BBS experience only comes from enduser rather than being a part of the scene at that point, so sadly my knowledge is limited. That screenshot brings back a lot of fun memories though! Whenever I get reminded of BBS', I always go to terminate.com as it was my client of choice and still in the modern era claimed to be 'the worlds most powerful communications program', despite being a DOS based BBS client. It kinda amuses me of all things, the domain now forwards to protonmail. e: ha, it looks like the dude who made Terminate, Bo Bendsten, went on to form JustEat which is like UberEats in the UK and a good chunk of Europe. First of that type of service I remember using for sure. e2: ah on further reflection, that screenshot isn't utilizing NFO files, but the smaller file_id.diz which were more compact for displaying in such a manner. EL BROMANCE has a new favorite as of 15:36 on Mar 17, 2022 |
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 15:31
|
|
|
Arguments about what ".diz" meant really take me back And yeah, finding a list of BBSs and checking them out one by one was seemingly the most fun you could possibly have with a modem in, say, 1991. IRC for me personally had surpassed it soon afterwards though
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 16:23
|
|
|
I don't know jack about BBS technology, I just know that The Wrong Side of the Tracks was the best module for LORD cause you could give the beggar -999999999 gold and be rich
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 16:25
|
|
|
The best door games were Crosses-and-crosses and Noughts-and-noughts.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 16:27
|
|
|
Dr. Quarex posted:Arguments about what ".diz" meant really take me back ICECHAT where you'd be able to see the sysop typing character for character and vice versa was always so cool. My friend had a second line so we messed around with a RemoteAccess install at his to mess about with the various addons, it was definitely an era that hasn't been replicated. Nothing quite like trying a line over, and over, and over again just to get hit with NUP: when it finally connected. Finding out that places you frequented were just fronts for cooler things behind closed doors was always a blast, and leaving some poo poo on the oneliner. Ahhhhh memories (and also getting my modem pulled out of my computer by my parents when I added like $300 to the phonebill in one quarter. Oof.)
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 16:40
|
|
|
EL BROMANCE posted:e2: ah on further reflection, that screenshot isn't utilizing NFO files, but the smaller file_id.diz which were more compact for displaying in such a manner. Oh true, I also forgot the difference between nfo and diz files!
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2022 16:41
|
|
|
RC and Moon Pie posted:I bought a parallel cable to transfer files between a Windows 95 machine and an early laptop of mine (think it was the Gateway, lol). Parallel cable Laplink would absolutely hose copying between computers using floppy disks. Serial Laplink is slower than parallel, but would've been faster than floppy disk
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2022 01:03
|
|
|
Relic in the sense that it's an older chip but mostly just funny:
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2022 01:18
|
|
|
EL BROMANCE posted:Definitely, my BBS experience only comes from enduser rather than being a part of the scene at that point, so sadly my knowledge is limited. That screenshot brings back a lot of fun memories though! It just took me a solid minute of thinking to come up with the name of the program I used to use in ~1995 to call up BBSes. I used it multiple times a day, every day; why is this so hard to remember, aaaaaagggh Telix. It was Telix. Back in high school I had used Procomm, but my first college roommate showed me Telix which was so much drat better I never touched Procomm again. ...I think I'm old. 
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2022 03:55
|
|
|
Jim Silly-Balls posted:Yeeeeaaaahhhhhhhh. Turns out I didnt jinx the disks, but instead jinxed both drives? Both of them power on, the green and orange lights come on (not sure if this is normal), and when I put a disk in, it does nothing and the drive wont eject it It's been decades since I last dealt with a Zip drive, but do they have jumpers? What you're describing sounds reminiscent of old IDE drives where if the jumper was incorrectly set between master/slave/auto it just wouldn't work.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2022 06:17
|
|
|
Has IDE cable select ever worked correctly even once for anyone in history? It feels like it's a fake setting put on there as a joke.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2022 06:38
|
|
|
I always used cable select and it usually worked.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2022 06:41
|
|
|
I did computer service and repair and I can say definitively that cable select was the only thing that worked on some machines, and would absolutely never work on others. And it really wasn't possible to determine which was which without trial and error. I saw so much weird hardware come through, like early SATA 3.5" HDDs that had a SATA connector for data but a molex connector for power, or sometimes both SATA power and molex power. A short glorious period of dealing with RAMBUS memory. The occasional 5.25" Bigfoot hard drive.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2022 07:24
|
|
|
I think they had to keep the molex power for a while because cheapo power supplies weren't including sata power connectors. And you really only needed the sata power if you were doing hot swapping, which regular consumers don't really do.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2022 07:27
|
|
|
Dip Viscous posted:Has IDE cable select ever worked correctly even once for anyone in history? It feels like it's a fake setting put on there as a joke. In XBox modding yes.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2022 09:02
|
|
|
isn't the idea with cable select that you have to use the right cables for it?  that broken wire is what makes it work, if your cable has all the wires connected to both drives they'll both think they should be the master drive
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2022 09:20
|
|
|
I think 100% of the newer 80 conductor IDE cables use have that cut wire, so if you use modern cables, you’re good.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2022 12:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 6, 2024 15:38 |
|
|
r u ready to WALK posted:isn't the idea with cable select that you have to use the right cables for it? That sure would explain things because I don't think I ever had a cable like that. I reused the same ~6 old cables for many years and then went to round cables as soon as I could.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2022 12:37
|
|