I would probably format a USB drive as FAT16 1 GB, put files onto it, then use usbimager in Ubuntu to create an image of the USB drive. Then delete all files on the USB drive and copy the 1 GB image file onto the USB stick. Next, edit the image file in Ubuntu later on to alter the files. Would this require writing a 1 GB file each time I alter files on the image (slow)?

I remember in the late 90's I used to have a parallel port to CF-card adaptor. I had a workstation w/NT4, so USB wasn't used. I wish I had kept that adaptor. I think it was an IOGear product. I can still picture it in my mind. Anybody know what transfer rates those LPT-to-CF adaptors were capable of?

I'd use dd, fdisk, mkfs.fat, then image mounter.

(If i'm in a hurry, truncate is faster than dd at making a blank file of an arbitrary size. dd just offers more control.)

Image mounter is stock on xubuntu. Just doubleclick the .img file, and you can work with it inside the file manager like any other disk. Be sure to unmount and eject it before copying it.

As for how I would use something like this:

There are a few vintage mono-cga lcd 'laptops' out there that lack any kind of permanent storage, and the addons that would enable that are bulky, and $$$ unobtainium.

Like the IBM 5140.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_Convertible

A 5v pigtail off the external keyboard, and a compact, displayless version of this zip emulator stuck on the parallel port, could shoehorn storage on. Sadly, I recall it having only 1 lpt, so cramming one of the lpt sound solutions on would be out of the question on a stock unit.

It would still let you get more use out of such a vintage toy, though.

wierd_w wrote on 2026-03-16, 14:47:

As for how I would use something like this: […]
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As for how I would use something like this:

There are a few vintage mono-cga lcd 'laptops' out there that lack any kind of permanent storage, and the addons that would enable that are bulky, and $$$ unobtainium.

Like the IBM 5140.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_Convertible

A 5v pigtail off the external keyboard, and a compact, displayless version of this zip emulator stuck on the parallel port, could shoehorn storage on. Sadly, I recall it having only 1 lpt, so cramming one of the lpt sound solutions on would be out of the question on a stock unit.

It would still let you get more use out of such a vintage toy, though.

Maybe a parallel port switcher will help. It may work fine if you need to use either sound or zip, but not both at the same time.

the3dfxdude wrote on 2026-03-15, 20:09:

There are direct LPT to CF and LPT to SD card adapters out there. Can you compare what emulating a zip drive brings to these other options?

Yeah I'm not seeing a real use case over those other than "I want to be restricted to 100MB volumes but don't want to make 100MB partitions". I am unaware of anything that NEEDS to be on a zip 100 disk, vs things that need to be on a floppy, CD, or DVD.

It doesn't have to be exactly 100MB. Any disk image up to 1GB will be supported. Additionally you can use Iomega driver and access the disk in Windows (up to XP), or PPA driver for Linux. Most of those LPT to CF/SD adapters out there support DOS only.

mdanh2002 wrote on 2026-03-16, 15:33:

Most of those LPT to CF/SD adapters out there support DOS only.

Which models were those? The LPT-to-CF adaptor I had worked in NT4 and w95. Sold it for $30 in 2006 :(

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-03-16, 15:24:

Yeah I'm not seeing a real use case over those other than "I want to be restricted to 100MB volumes but don't want to make 100MB partitions". I am unaware of anything that NEEDS to be on a zip 100 disk, vs things that need to be on a floppy, CD, or DVD.

1 GB is a nice maximum size for vintage systems. Aside from the disk imaging fuss, I think it is the read/write speeds which will be the limiting element. I recall benching ISA ethernet around 700 KB/s. I think my Xircom ethernet over LPT got around 230 KB/s. Even at 60 KB/s, I can see the benefit of this emulator for 286 and older systems.

feipoa wrote on 2026-03-16, 23:06:

Which models were those? The LPT-to-CF adaptor I had worked in NT4 and w95. Sold it for $30 in 2006 :( […]
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mdanh2002 wrote on 2026-03-16, 15:33:

Most of those LPT to CF/SD adapters out there support DOS only.

Which models were those? The LPT-to-CF adaptor I had worked in NT4 and w95. Sold it for $30 in 2006 🙁

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-03-16, 15:24:

Yeah I'm not seeing a real use case over those other than "I want to be restricted to 100MB volumes but don't want to make 100MB partitions". I am unaware of anything that NEEDS to be on a zip 100 disk, vs things that need to be on a floppy, CD, or DVD.

1 GB is a nice maximum size for vintage systems. Aside from the disk imaging fuss, I think it is the read/write speeds which will be the limiting element. I recall benching ISA ethernet around 700 KB/s. I think my Xircom ethernet over LPT got around 230 KB/s. Even at 60 KB/s, I can see the benefit of this emulator for 286 and older systems.

I am referring to modern hobbyist DIY LPT-to-CF/SD adapters sometimes sold on eBay/AliExpress, not commercial units back in the late 1990s-early 2000s. Most of these DIY units support DOS only. Or if you are very lucky, Windows 95.
I used to have an LPT adapter for 3.5" hard disk drive. It worked fine with a CF-to-IDE adapter. It's very big and even has an internal fan (which ran off the 12V supply). I threw it away back in 2010.

Seems like a very interesting project to undertake. I haven't tried reverse engineering hardware, but back in my university days I recall enjoying the process of reverse-engineering how bitmap files are stored. Admittedly not a very complex task, but was very rewarding to see my modula-2 program draw graphics on the screen (it didnt natively support bitmaps, as far as I was aware).

I don't personally have a need for this, as my PCs are in a cupboard, with no easy access to the rear of the PCs. But, I can see your project being of use to some.

In my case I use internal ATAPI zip drives. ZIP 100 for my DOS machines and ZIP 750 for the Win 9x machines. I also have a USB 750Mb and USB 100Mb to connect to my modern Windows 11 PC or to my XP machines. Though I am considering adding a second NIC to my NAS and have a retro network that's connected just to the NAS, and not the Internet.

I have to say though, that even the internal drives are rather slow. I tend to just walk away whilst it copies, unless I am copying something small.

It was very satisfying the first time I got PALMZIP to assign a drive letter. I was even happier when DIR and COPY CON both worked perfectly in MS-DOS. From there, getting the emulation to work with Iomega drivers under Windows was a matter of creativity and patience. I learned a lot about x86 assembly in the process too.

Backwards compatibility was not that great between ZIP100, ZIP250 and ZIP750. ZIP250 drives can read ZIP100 disks normally, but can only write to ZIP100 disks slowly. The ZIP750 drives only have read-only support for ZIP100. I have never played with an IDE ZIP drive, only USB and LPT drives.

mdanh2002 wrote on 2026-03-17, 12:49:

It was very satisfying the first time I got PALMZIP to assign a drive letter. I was even happier when DIR and COPY CON both worked perfectly in MS-DOS. From there, getting the emulation to work with Iomega drivers under Windows was a matter of creativity and patience. I learned a lot about x86 assembly in the process too.

Yeah, I am sure! Impressive work.

mdanh2002 wrote on 2026-03-17, 12:49:

Backwards compatibility was not that great between ZIP100, ZIP250 and ZIP750. ZIP250 drives can read ZIP100 disks normally, but can only write to ZIP100 disks slowly. The ZIP750 drives only have read-only support for ZIP100. I have never played with an IDE ZIP drive, only USB and LPT drives.

Yes, the backwards compatibility compromises were unfortunate. But, TBH, they were fighting against CD-Rs and flash storage by that point. So had to make the drives as cheap as possible. Presumably hoping to make money on the disks but, due to the read-write nature of them, and the price, most people only owned a small number of disks.

This is pretty cool! I loved my ZIP 100 drive back in the day, until...

So does the emulator start clicking and randomly destroying data? That would make it really authentic.

Am I the only one here with a functional lpt zip100?

Lol!

It mostly draws dust on the shelf, but is ocassionally useful.

wierd_w wrote on Yesterday, 21:09:

Am I the only one here with a functional lpt zip100?

Lol!

It mostly draws dust on the shelf, but is ocassionally useful.

4 of them, one in original box (albeit "used").

I do see a use for this thing 😉
Having a faster 1GB card for older PCs is always welcome.

If I understood correctly, you can eject the card from the LPT adapter.
Speed is really underwhelming but I bet your (put internal organ of choice) that it can be sped up. (sorry, watched Fallout)

Yes, the USB is plug-and-play in my design. You can also switch between disk images or raw USB access. Speed is currently at best 200KB/s (bidirectional parallel port mode), but hopefully can be improved further using EPP/ECP.

mdanh2002 wrote on 2026-03-15, 13:34:

(3) I believe bidirectional parallel port speed is capped at 200KB/s. During testing on Windows 98 on DOSBox-X, I got around 50- […]
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(3)
I believe bidirectional parallel port speed is capped at 200KB/s. During testing on Windows 98 on DOSBox-X, I got around 50-60KB/s using my implementation.
....
On my working IOMEGA ZIP100 drive, the max speed is only around 700KB/s, even in EPP mode. Perhaps it could do 2MB/s years ago when it was still new.

Was the test system for the 700 KB/s result also using DOSBox-X with Win98? Or did you use vintage hardware for this test?

Some years back I ran some transfer rates using a stop watch with various external storage medium. All were on IDE or SCSI though.

LS-120: 0.5 MB/s
ZIP100: 1.4 MB/s
ZIP250: 2.4 MB/s
ZIP750: 6.4 MB/s
Gigamo 2.3: 8.4 MB/s
Jazz 2 GB: 8.7 MB/s

I was just curious if 700 KB/s was the max practical throughput for ZIP on LTP/EPP, or if something else was holding it back.

I tested the ZIP100 on my Pentium III machine running Windows 98. 700KB/s was the best I could get. I didn't observe a lot of differences in performance between EPP and ECP mode, although they were certainly much faster than bidirectional mode. I tweaked a lot of BIOS settings and also tried Iomega DOS drivers, with similar results. I believe the slower speed compared to your test (1.4MB/s) is also because my disk/drive has been heavily used. A new old stock disk/drive might have better performance.

Btw, would anyone be interested in a Xircom parallel port Ethernet adapter clone, which now supports both Ethernet & Wifi? Maybe with a DOS utility (or front panel buttons) to configure the Wifi password?

feipoa wrote on Today, 04:29:

I was just curious if 700 KB/s was the max practical throughput for ZIP on LTP/EPP, or if something else was holding it back.

1Mbit was supposed to be the limit of raw EPP throughput, so with control bits and media format data, that sounds about optimal. Similar to how you get 720kB on a 1Mbit DSDD 3.5" disk with an MSDOS format.

mdanh2002 wrote on Today, 05:51:

I tested the ZIP100 on my Pentium III machine running Windows 98. 700KB/s was the best I could get. I didn't observe a lot of differences in performance between EPP and ECP mode, although they were certainly much faster than bidirectional mode. I tweaked a lot of BIOS settings and also tried Iomega DOS drivers, with similar results. I believe the slower speed compared to your test (1.4MB/s) is also because my disk/drive has been heavily used. A new old stock disk/drive might have better performance.

Btw, would anyone be interested in a Xircom parallel port Ethernet adapter clone, which now supports both Ethernet & Wifi? Maybe with a DOS utility (or front panel buttons) to configure the Wifi password?

Xircom Pocket Ethernet clone, that bridges raw ethernet frames over utility-set wifi, would be very nice actually.

Then one could use dos packet drivers, and use arbitrary protocols over it on vintage boxes.

You'd need to have a way to instruct the clone what SSID to bridge to, and what the key/password is though. The OG pocket ethernet knows of no such wizardry, and neither does most vintage dos networking.

You would need to call a configuration program first to initialize the XPE clone, with a wait for the association to happen, before loading the dos XPE packet drivers.