stenoweb\coryw @coryw@cronk.stenoweb.net

cronk is running on http://fd.stenoweb.net/SitePages/TECT.aspx - let me know if it's weird.

Also, should there be like a server account (or should I make, like, a TECT Info account?) for announcements related to the server itself? Especially given that the server has to run updates once in a while, etc. #TECT

News: a competitive writing group has opened up in the same cafe at the same time as mine.

Fruit sludge

I just found out that RDP is now smart enough not to transmit a video signal when you minimize it, saving a lot of transmitted bits if you're playing a video.

This is also why if you're remote controlling a customer and they let you in on a remotely controlled system instead of their local one, the screen disables or goes dark if they minimize the session.

Good morning. I'm accessing files from my AppleShare server via vintage web server this morning.

oops. now I'm powered by ASIP.

After the whole thing, and continued failures to recover the brand, Iomega packed in the entire Zip operation in 2003, in favor of products that looked ilke more normal docked hard disks (Peerless) and a successor to Jaz (REV) that was mostly focused on pro/server/workstation backup, including a "loader" device.

Now their corpse builds Linux-based NASes.

It's a fitting end, I feel.

Anyway, I'm convinced reduced confidence in Zip killed the concept of removable cartridge media. It was not really a great deal in terms of $/gig, but you bought it because it was convenient and incremental, not because it was the cheapest way to get additional gigs.

The thing we all always get taught about capitalism is it lets the best ideas win, but if that were at all true, MO would have won and probably lasted a lot longer. It was being manufactured in Japan until ~2010 after all.

The other knock against LS-120 was that nobody else had one in 1998. It only made a lot of sense if you needed a USB floppy drive, and you bought the LS-120 because AFAICT it was the first commercial one and when others appeared, LS-120 was only a few dollars more.

Basically, you got a "good enough" superfloppy in exchange for access to all your old regular floppies, and you either used it with or without a zip drive too.

They also had a (big) sidebar about MO in which they attribute MO's low popularity in North America to USA's need for instant gratification over reliability, and alluded to MO's greater popularity in Europe and Japan.

Also, they directly pointed at MO's insanely good cost/meg at the time (3 pennies per gig, for both 640m 3.5 MO like @techfury has and 5.2GB 5.25 MO).

LS-120 was discussed. It was panned for being slow, new and unproven, but the cost/MB was good and they shipped a USB drive first

But even in 1998 (I was reading November 1998 MacWorld) you can see the trend away from removable media start. In a feature round-up article about magnetic removable disks, MacWorld spent an entire subsection to the idea of just buying one or two more internal SCSI hard disks, as cheaper, safer, and faster than even bothering with Zip/Jaz at all.

The "Click of Death" which was worse on Zip than on any other removable magnetic storage format, was actually a collection of a few different issues that came up because the drives and disks were starting to age and because of a batch built after some cost reductions.

The market still needed Zip, so it persisted basically until it was reasonable for everyone to buy their own CD-RW drive or buy a new computer w/ CD or DVD burner, and flash drives started existing.

Ok, so some more zip drive stuff: I took a deep dirve into the issue over the past day or so and wrote an essay or two on twitter and on a forum.

The short version is iomega used money to buy their success by *almost* dumping the drives into computers sold by Apple and PC OEMs, and to make sure it was widely available at retail, and then EXTREMELY HEAVILY advertise.

They charged a shitload for the chartridges (zips were 3x more per meg than any other type of disk), and built everything cheap.

I saw an argument today that zip is "the DNA of the mid 90s to early 00s retro mac experience" which is the biggest load of crap I think I've ever heard.

The only thing Zip is is cleverly marketed razor blades you can use to quickly destroy large looking amounts of data, and I'm betting the only reason Apple bundled the drives at all was because Zip was the only superfloppy/datacartridge format you could buy in the local Wal Mart if you needed.

@ueberferret @techfury

The sonnet sata card.

Reset pram, now it shows cd/Zip, but no disk appears on card. Try another slot or dead?

It’s in b1, the middle slot, right now.

No other cards in machine.