The good old Zip Drive introduced by Iomega in late 1994 served it's purpose as a medium-capacity removable disk storage system until obsolescence kicked in as it was replaced by flash drives as well as rewritable CDs and DVDs. Here are a few things you can do to give new life to that outdated drive. Have you made creative use of yours? If so, tell us.
To download The New Life For Old Zip Drives MP4 click hereor subscribe in iTunes.
Posted by: Pe'er on September 12, 2008 at 11:32 AM
But it isn't a serial port....
The port on the rear of a Zip drive is either a parallel (printer) port or a SCSI port. These were much faster than the serial ports.
One of the great things about the enclure is the window in the top, ideal for showing off your handy work, or for placing a a screen or information behing, where it'll be nice and safe!
Posted by: KipKay on September 13, 2008 at 5:34 AM
@ pe'er - You are right! My bad. That just shows you how long it's been since I used one. I watched the edited vid a half dozen times and finally realized my mistake after I uploaded it. I even looked right at the little embossed printer icon and completely overlooked it. Brain fart. Thanks for the clarification.
Posted by: KipKay on September 13, 2008 at 5:30 AM
@ sfhgsfgh - The purpose of the first project was to make a covert, sneaky, hidden storage container for 'top secret' data on a hard drive that most people would not know existed. You must have missed that so I thought I would point it out to you. As far as "How to wipe off your ape"...I just use a little "Fantastik Orange Action All Purpose Cleaner, but you have to hold him down because they don't like the smell. Hope that helps!
Posted by: Erik Lindemann on September 12, 2008 at 6:39 PM
I liked this one
It didn't have a commercial in the middle of it. KipKay, I realize you're looking to make a buck or two, but it's really better without the commercials.
As for content, it's unfortunately we threw out our old Zip Drive back when it clicked.
Posted by: KipKay on September 13, 2008 at 5:17 AM
@ Erik - Just so you know, I have no say about the ads in the Weekend Project videos. They are MAKE advertisers. I too tossed a few zip drives away back in the day so I had to scramble and locate a few from friends for these projects. Thanks for the comment.
Posted by: Anonymous on September 19, 2008 at 1:11 AM
Thanks for the vid! I just finished up a full garage clean-out, and what did I find but my old zip drive. I remember tweaking my linux kernel *just so* so that blasted blue bugger would work. I even found a few zip disk with who knows what on them. As soon as I find a machine with a || port, I'll dump 'em and then find something good to do with the drive. I dig the nerd-tastic piggy bank, maybe with a few switches and LEDs that serve no particular purpose ;)
Posted by: cliff52.livejournal.com on September 19, 2008 at 8:52 AM
Zip Drive Interfaces
The wikipedia article on zip drives lists atapi, lpt, scsi, usb, and firewire interfaces. So everyone is right!
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_drive)
Great article and a fine series - thanks, KipKay!
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Nice video this week Kip, the Air-tool made me laugh.
Reply to this comment
The port on the rear of a Zip drive is either a parallel (printer) port or a SCSI port. These were much faster than the serial ports.
One of the great things about the enclure is the window in the top, ideal for showing off your handy work, or for placing a a screen or information behing, where it'll be nice and safe!
Reply to this comment
@ pe'er - You are right! My bad. That just shows you how long it's been since I used one. I watched the edited vid a half dozen times and finally realized my mistake after I uploaded it. I even looked right at the little embossed printer icon and completely overlooked it. Brain fart. Thanks for the clarification.
Reply to this comment
The zip drive used parallel ports, not serial or SCSI. You actually connected it to the parallel printer port on your computer.
Reply to this comment
who need to watch such pointless videos.
Who'd want to put a sleek small device in a big old case?
Weekend Project: How to wipe off your a**!
Weekend Project: Think for yourself!
Reply to this comment
@ sfhgsfgh - The purpose of the first project was to make a covert, sneaky, hidden storage container for 'top secret' data on a hard drive that most people would not know existed. You must have missed that so I thought I would point it out to you. As far as "How to wipe off your ape"...I just use a little "Fantastik Orange Action All Purpose Cleaner, but you have to hold him down because they don't like the smell. Hope that helps!
Reply to this comment
I have 3 in my garage right now. They had to make a SCSI interface for the Mac users since they didn't(don't?) have parallel ports.
Reply to this comment
It didn't have a commercial in the middle of it. KipKay, I realize you're looking to make a buck or two, but it's really better without the commercials.
As for content, it's unfortunately we threw out our old Zip Drive back when it clicked.
Reply to this comment
@ Erik - Just so you know, I have no say about the ads in the Weekend Project videos. They are MAKE advertisers. I too tossed a few zip drives away back in the day so I had to scramble and locate a few from friends for these projects. Thanks for the comment.
Reply to this comment
I like creating Zip drive bouquets to add mood -- and zip -- to my apartment.
see http://redecoratingtipsfor.blogspot.com/
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@phil shapiro - Okay, now THAT's funny! I hope most people can get the imagery of some of that like I did. Nice work.
Reply to this comment
Thanks for the vid! I just finished up a full garage clean-out, and what did I find but my old zip drive. I remember tweaking my linux kernel *just so* so that blasted blue bugger would work. I even found a few zip disk with who knows what on them. As soon as I find a machine with a || port, I'll dump 'em and then find something good to do with the drive. I dig the nerd-tastic piggy bank, maybe with a few switches and LEDs that serve no particular purpose ;)
Reply to this comment
The wikipedia article on zip drives lists atapi, lpt, scsi, usb, and firewire interfaces. So everyone is right!
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_drive)
Great article and a fine series - thanks, KipKay!
Reply to this comment