by "MM54" (mm54mk2)
Published 11/13/2017 at 22:28
by "MM54" (mm54mk2)
Published 11/13/2017 at 22:28
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I can’t say I’m surprised, but I’m a bit disappointed that I can’t seem to get my parallel port zip disk drive working on windows 10.
Backstory: I was given a not-that-old computer that was broken (ended up just needing a power supply) and fixed it. It has a parallel port, so I figured I would give it a shot, but it looks like there’s no hope of any sort of driver working under anything-x64.
"AC2 - The Now 15 Year Old Jalop" (ac-2-shoes)
11/13/2017 at 22:33, STARS: 0
pics of the computer or model?
"Nibby" (nibby68)
11/13/2017 at 22:34, STARS: 0
best bet is an older XP system
"MM54" (mm54mk2)
11/13/2017 at 22:46, STARS: 0
Computer is just a dell optiplex 780, c. 2011. For some reason it has windows 10 on it, which I’m okay with (this computer is destined for the basement workbench to fetch schematics and such). The drive is an iomega zip100 drive, parallel flavor (I think they also made them in USB but I don’t have one).
"MM54" (mm54mk2)
11/13/2017 at 22:49, STARS: 0
I have a copy of the drivers for it for windows 98 on floppy, but have a gap in computer where I have nothing windows (that works) between 95 and vista*. I do have a ton of XP CDs and keys though so I guess if I really wanted to I could get something going.
*The windows 95 machine hasn’t been powered on in 5+ years; the vista machine is pretty much unusably slow last I tried, as it’s running its original install from when vista was launched
"MM54" (mm54mk2)
11/13/2017 at 22:51, STARS: 0
I recently built a very-good modern system that I also kind of really want to put a 5.25" floppy drive in, but I doubt I’d ever get it working
"Wacko" (wacko--)
11/13/2017 at 22:51, STARS: 0
Parallel zip as in 100mb disk?
But why?
Zip drives died for a reason.
"bhtooefr" (bhtooefr)
11/13/2017 at 22:53, STARS: 0
Your best bet is to go for a USB version, those should just appear as USB mass storage I think.
"MM54" (mm54mk2)
11/13/2017 at 22:53, STARS: 2
"MM54" (mm54mk2)
11/13/2017 at 22:56, STARS: 0
Yeeeaaaaaah I thought about that (also a USB to parallel converter). I’d probably do that if I had something I wanted off a zip disk, but at this point it’s just to mess around with.
Can I get an ethernet-to-parallel adapter (ala print server) to make a network-attached zip drive? Now THAT would be worthwhile!
"Wacko" (wacko--)
11/13/2017 at 23:03, STARS: 1
I used to sell those drives when new, and I don’t miss them one bit.
I had all the stuff that nibby is going crazy for, and don’t miss them at all. I destroyed so many of what he posts during my time.
That being said, I still have a few windows xp (wow iOS hates it when I type xp) because it was along for so long that almost everything works with XP
"MM54" (mm54mk2)
11/13/2017 at 23:07, STARS: 1
I do industrial controls so believe me, I really appreciate modern stuff and would not want to work with the old hardware and software all the time, but I can appreciate it and have some fun at home.
"bhtooefr" (bhtooefr)
11/13/2017 at 23:17, STARS: 1
USB to parallel and print servers are really only for printing, where parallel port Zip drives are abusing the parallel port for things other than printing.
About the only way I could think to do a network-attached Zip drive is... network share it from a computer that it works with.
"Boxer_4" (Boxer_4)
11/14/2017 at 02:02, STARS: 0
The Parallel interface Zip drives are in a weird spot on modern systems - USB, IDE, and even SCSI (I think) have built in drivers in Windows 10. You might have some luck running a virtual copy of XP using something like Virtual Box, which I believe has a way to interface with the Parallel port, but that may be a bit cumbersome, and don’t remember how well the Optiplex 780 did running a virtual pc instance.
Speaking of the Optiplex 780, that’s a pretty nice score. I
sort-of used one
as my main computer for 2 years, and am still using it as a media-center PC.
"404 - User No Longer Available" (toni-cipriani)
11/14/2017 at 08:18, STARS: 0
Ubuntu Live USB, then try loading the ppa module?
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/IomegaZIPDrive
"ateamfan42" (ateamfan42)
11/14/2017 at 10:59, STARS: 1
To be fair, even when new, those parallel port drives were known to be a little flaky.
The internal IDE ones were pretty good, and the external SCSI drives were solid— but of course you needed computer with SCSI and that was uncommon outside of Macs.
"MM54" (mm54mk2)
11/14/2017 at 18:24, STARS: 0
I am considering dual booting this machine with ubuntu so that may be a valid option. Thanks!
"MM54" (mm54mk2)
11/14/2017 at 18:26, STARS: 0
Hey, same processor as this one!
It’s going to end up on the workbench in the basement and [infrequently] used for reference, etc. while there so it should be okay, spec-wise. I’m surprised it has windows 10 on on. Considering dual booting with ubuntu but I want to say I read somewhere a while ago that W10 makes it hard to do that.
"MM54" (mm54mk2)
11/14/2017 at 18:27, STARS: 0
Has anyone figured out how to put a parallel port on a raspberry pi yet? Certainly connecting it to that and networking it wouldn’t be cumbersome at all!
"bhtooefr" (bhtooefr)
11/14/2017 at 18:39, STARS: 1
Interestingly, the other way around has been done, to emulate a printer using a RPi: http://www.retroprinter.com/
It’s almost certainly doable the other way, you’d need some kernel drivers though.
"Boxer_4" (Boxer_4)
11/15/2017 at 14:40, STARS: 1
Mine was decent to use when I had it in that configuration (E8400, 4gb RAM, built in graphics) on Windows 7.It should be perfectly fine for what your plans are. My later configuration made it usable for Solidworks, though it was just alright for the task. Made it work great on everything else!
I’ve not got much experience with 10, but I have heard that dual booting with it can be annoying. I’ve still got 7 on all my personal stuff... well, everything that supports 7...
"MM54" (mm54mk2)
11/15/2017 at 17:34, STARS: 0
This one’s got 6gb of memory (3x 2gb cards). Not sure what the video hardware is, but it’s on-board so nothing too exciting.
I have W10 on my desktop I built earlier this year, mainly because I wasn’t about to pay full retail for a copy of W7 which would be unsupported in like a year. Otherwise I’ve been clinging to 7 as much as possible.
"Boxer_4" (Boxer_4)
11/16/2017 at 11:24, STARS: 1
On-board graphics is the Intel GMA 4500 on these. Good, but nothing special. 6gb should be fine on that.
Windows 7 is supported until January 2020. I still have a copy of 7 floating around, so I was able to use that on the build that replaced the Lenovo with the Optiplex 780 motherboard as my main computer.