Bought an external 100MB ZIP drive with the software, and cables (extender, ZIP to PC Parallel cables, and power adapter) that I'm going to be using on my Packard Bell. Might get an internal IDE one for my K6-2 machine and a 10 pack of 100MB ZIP disks, and 350MB 2120XL data tapes on eBay.

Why not an IDE LS drive? holds more data and is more user friendly if you ask me. I guess LS disks aren't an every day find.

Got an external USB FDD, Samsung SFD-321U. Makes a cool "HMMMMM" noise when spinning. Neither of the two retro machines I've whittled down to have an internal FDD, so I bought this to use their BIOS' "USB-FDD" boot options for troubleshooting/etc. It works fine for that.

bjwil1991 wrote:

Bought an external 100MB ZIP drive with the software, and cables (extender, ZIP to PC Parallel cables, and power adapter) that I'm going to be using on my Packard Bell. Might get an internal IDE one for my K6-2 machine and a 10 pack of 100MB ZIP disks, and 350MB 2120XL data tapes on eBay.

I have always been a bit afraid of ZIP drives since the click of death thing. Is there a way to recognise affected drives?

Cyrix200+ wrote:

bjwil1991 wrote:

Bought an external 100MB ZIP drive with the software, and cables (extender, ZIP to PC Parallel cables, and power adapter) that I'm going to be using on my Packard Bell. Might get an internal IDE one for my K6-2 machine and a 10 pack of 100MB ZIP disks, and 350MB 2120XL data tapes on eBay.

I have always been a bit afraid of ZIP drives since the click of death thing. Is there a way to recognise affected drives?

I've been very wary of Zip drives ever since I used them in college.

The dumb computers or maybe the drives themselves would randomly wipe all data from the disk without warning. If you didn't have a backup you were definitely hosed.

If you did have a backup, you better hope it was not on a zip drive as you had about a 50% chance that when you inserted that disk it would get wiped as well.

ATi Radeon X1800XT 256MB PCIe
Boxed AOpen 802.11b PCMCIA WiFi adapter
PowerBook G4 w/o power adapter
DMS59 to VGA splitter
25 pin serial cable
a few cd games

A couple arrivals for my planned builds:

According to the label on the mouse, I may be a victim of piracy if it was supplied without a new PC. I should contact Logitech immediately!

cyclone3d wrote:

I've been very wary of Zip drives ever since I used them in college.

For what it's worth I personally have never experienced the CoD or other catastrophic failure with any Zip drive I've ever used, which includes multiple internal drives in college and a mix of a few internal and external drives at home. Only problem I've had with a Zip drive is my USB-powered 250MB drive randomly "unmounting" the disk...not ejecting it, just suddenly acting like there is no disk inserted and refusing to let me read it until I eject and re-insert the disk (Spins down and starts blinking the LED slowly). Granted this could be a problem with 64-bit Windows and/or Windows 10, but it's never been a show-stopper since, like I said, all I need to do is eject then re-insert the disk to get it going again.

moawkwrd wrote:

A couple arrivals for my planned builds: […]
Show full quote

A couple arrivals for my planned builds:

IMG_1078.JPG

IMG_1076.JPG

According to the label on the mouse, I may be a victim of piracy if it was supplied without a new PC. I should contact Logitech immediately!

XFX 8800GTS. Lifetime warranty. They still honor it. I put them to the test recently.

Cyrix200+ wrote:

bjwil1991 wrote:

Bought an external 100MB ZIP drive with the software, and cables (extender, ZIP to PC Parallel cables, and power adapter) that I'm going to be using on my Packard Bell. Might get an internal IDE one for my K6-2 machine and a 10 pack of 100MB ZIP disks, and 350MB 2120XL data tapes on eBay.

I have always been a bit afraid of ZIP drives since the click of death thing. Is there a way to recognise affected drives?

The reasons why behind the click of death was because of the following:

1. Dusty cartridges or oxidized read/write heads
2. Power outage/unplugging constantly
3. Misaligned heads
4. Mis-written cartridges or damaged disks can damage the head
5. Missing pieces for cost reduction (like the 1995-2000 Chrysler/Plymouth/Dodge minivans with no Brake Shift Interlock)

Iomega had a lawsuit filed against them in 1998 and wasn't settled until 2001. The drives and disks later on were labeled which ones were/are bad later on in life.

moawkwrd wrote:

A couple arrivals for my planned builds:

IMG_1078.JPG

Why get a potential brick?

cyclone3d wrote:

I've been very wary of Zip drives ever since I used them in college. […]
Show full quote

Cyrix200+ wrote:

bjwil1991 wrote:

Bought an external 100MB ZIP drive with the software, and cables (extender, ZIP to PC Parallel cables, and power adapter) that I'm going to be using on my Packard Bell. Might get an internal IDE one for my K6-2 machine and a 10 pack of 100MB ZIP disks, and 350MB 2120XL data tapes on eBay.

I have always been a bit afraid of ZIP drives since the click of death thing. Is there a way to recognise affected drives?

I've been very wary of Zip drives ever since I used them in college.

The dumb computers or maybe the drives themselves would randomly wipe all data from the disk without warning. If you didn't have a backup you were definitely hosed.

If you did have a backup, you better hope it was not on a zip drive as you had about a 50% chance that when you inserted that disk it would get wiped as well.

USB ZIP drives 250 Mb can read the 100 Mb disks as well and usually don't suffer from the earlier drives' problems. Mine is now close to 15 years old and still works fine (except on my MacBook Pro, which seems to drive it very hard...).

elod wrote:

moawkwrd wrote:

A couple arrivals for my planned builds:

The attachment IMG_1078.JPG is no longer available

Why get a potential brick?

It was cheap enough for it not to matter if it is.

Today's arrivals, slightly larger:

Sharp 17" LCD with speakers, from 2002 roughly.

Two of the beige towers are for harvesting parts and then selling on what I can't use. Will be using the Gateway tower with it's lovely stickers for my Windows 98 machine. Black Antec Tower is for Windows XP.

Wyse rubber dome PS/2 keyboard, looks to be from the early 2000s judging by the Windows keys. As new in box.

I put a relatively low starting bid on this item, to my suprise it was immediately accepted by the seller. Quite happy with it. Paid 60 euro for it.

@moawkwrd

love that antec case in the middle. I had a black one and crammed a P4 inside it. I would not mind getting another.

moawkwrd wrote:

<snip> […]
Show full quote

<snip>

Today's arrivals, slightly larger:
<snip>

DSC00181.jpg

Two of the beige towers are for harvesting parts and then selling on what I can't use. Will be using the Gateway tower with it's lovely stickers for my Windows 98 machine. Black Antec Tower is for Windows XP.
<snip>

Love the beige cases, the Antec is a true modern classic!

luckybob wrote:

@moawkwrd

love that antec case in the middle. I had a black one and crammed a P4 inside it. I would not mind getting another.

I still use mine daily but I have to admit that the NSK4000 on the right is better.

This arrived today. I'm a sucker for all Ti4600 cards. The Nvidia 45.23 Control Panel identifies it as a Ti4800, however!

The card is almost new, and the cables are still sealed. New manual. $28 shipped from shopgoodwill.com.

UPDATE: I just learned that the Ti4800 is an 8x AGP Ti4600.

Athlon XP has nothing on my "new" PSU =)

agent_x007 wrote:

Athlon XP has nothing on my "new" PSU =)

Tagan TG420-U01.jpg

If that PSU is anything like my 370W Tagan, it will be very tightly packed and not have a lot of airflow. It's ...somewhere in the middle perhaps when it comes to build quality (partially due to the parts chosen, like certain caps)..but mine is very heavy!
Will be hard to repair due to how packed that PSU is. I got one due to the good 5v and 12v rails back when my Barton 3200+ was still the fastest thing I could lay my hands on.

My Tagan did work reliably, even though I didn't fully trust it (yes I ended up having basically zero problems with mine).

moawkwrd wrote:

Today's arrivals, slightly larger:

DSC00181.jpg

Two of the beige towers are for harvesting parts and then selling on what I can't use. Will be using the Gateway tower with it's lovely stickers for my Windows 98 machine. Black Antec Tower is for Windows XP.

I'd personally prefer the middle one though. But I also like the Gateway case to the left (but I think the center beige one looks best). The black case seems like a run-of-the-mill black/silvery case though.