Published in the May 1995 issue of the Monitor, the monthly magazine of the Capital PC User Group, Inc.

Rich's Ramblings

by Rich Schinnell

Well IOMEGA has done it again. When I worked at Vitro Corporation, we used lots of the IOMEGA Bernoulli drives for classified work, maintaining libraries of graphic files and DeskTop publishing. We probably had a hundred bernoulli drives from 10 megs to the 90's.

As one of the perks as the president of CPCUG, I get asked to take a look at some of the new goodies coming down the pike. During FOSE, I had the opportunity to meet with the CEO of Iomega for lunch. There were other user groups represented and we all got a good briefing on their new attitude and the new ZIP drives. I was asked if I would like to take one for a spin, those that know me will attest to fact that I try to be on the bleeding edge of technology on some things. I said of course.

This was on Wednesday, on Friday, the Federal Express person dropped off a package for me at my home. I saw that it was from Iomega. I was pleasantly surprised and disappointed. They shipped me the drive and it was a real nice small disk drive. (Retail $199.00). They did send along 6 of their cartridges. Each holds 100 megabytes of data ($19.95 ea.). But I did not have the correct cable to match up with the mini db-50 that my Adaptec SCSI controller card had out the back plane.

All weekend long, I tried to figure out how and where to get a cable with a db-25 male on one end and a mini-db-50 on the other. I immediately thought of Norm Coe from Simplicity computers in Tyson's Corner VA, Norm has more cables and adapters that you could ever need. Called him up and decided that I could pick one up on Monday. Anyway, I looked at the drive all weekend and on Monday, I finally got the correct cable to hook it up.

Turned all the power off. Put the cable into the back of my Adaptec controller and turned it all back on. I had to turn off the terminator on the Adaptec SCSI controller board as the Iomega ZIP drive has a terminator on it. I was disappointed <G> (Those are Grins for the communications challenged!). The drive came up and was recognized by the ASPI SCSI drivers. I had another 100 megabyte drive. No installing config.sys junk and trying to figure out what was going on. The only thing that I had trouble with was that the Bernoulli was E: and my cdrom is now drive F instead of drive E. I used the drive to back up some critical files and it really flies. I have not tested the access times but It seems fast.. (Specification sheet says 28 milliseconds) It will retail for $199 (Ad from Computer City lists it at that price, either SCSI or Parallel port models) with the cartridges at $19.95. The cartridges are about the size of a 3 «" diskette. All in all, the thing works. For those without a good SCSI controller ( Adaptec), Iomega sells a small SCSI interface board so that you can use the drive on most any machine. Iomega also sells the ZIP drive in a parallel port model, which of course will be much slower but still has the portability. There is a program on the tools disk that comes with the drive that is called GUEST.EXE, this program will search your ports looking for the drive and will assign a drive letter to it for your use without having to install a bunch of drivers. Neat idea but I have not been able to test it. Of course I messed around with the drive and was able to use it without all the special software that Iomega supplies, Because of my Adaptec controller and basic software, It was recognized as a drive without problems. I was able to format the disks with the DOS format command and the drive acts just like any other disk. The system recognizes any disk changes as does windows. OS/2 Warp h ad a problem recognizing the disk. I tried loading the Iomega drivers in the CONFIG.SYS but Warp barfed on them. Back to the drawing board. Windows95 (xx insert your own year in here <G>) file manager recognized the drive without problem and understood that it was a removable. Not to demean the Iomega Tools that come with the ZIP drive as they are really neat, A disk cataloging program as well as some security features for password protecting your SIP diskettes. According to Iomega, the only way to get data off the cartridge is to send the disk back to Iomega. But of course if you thought enough of your data to password protect the information, would you really want it tobe in the hands of others?

Bottom line: Iomega is a very progressive company that has in the
past delivered good useful products for business and home use. I always thought of Iomega's as the Compaq equivalent for removable media. This product seems to be another in their long line of useful and valuable Bernoulli devices. It works and is reasonable. I don't own stock or have any financial interest in Iomeg or Compaq. Contact your local computer store or call Iomega Corporation 1 800-my stuff or (800) 697-8833 Street prices are: Iomega ZIP Drive $199 Diskettes 100 Megabytes $19.95

PS, I am still testing the final final final final beta of Windows95.
<G>

Rich Schinnell is the president of Capital PC and a general all around techi who enjoys helping others. He can be reached at schinnel@cpcug.org or (301) 949-9292

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