After decommissioning the Zip drive on my PC after years of disuse, I wondered how many people actually still use Zip drives on a daily basis. With network storage, USB memory sticks, SD cards and the like, I’m wondering where Zip drives would still be a common sight.
Do you still freqently use storage media that would be considered obsolete or on the verge of obsolescence? VHS tapes? Beta tapes? Jaz drives? Cassette tapes? Reel-to-Reel? Know anyone with a still-functional Elcaset deck? If so, why?
I still have Zip drives on both my home and work computers and use them fairly often (my computer at home only has USB ports on the back, which make it a pain in the ass to use memory sticks, though recently I did buy a special cable to fix that problem).
I still record to VHS tape, because my TiVo will only let you record to tape, not to DVD.
I have a fairly sizable collection of laserdisks in storage. I’ll probably try and burn them to DVD as soon as I get my hands on them again, though.
I am also personally betting that the standard hard drive is going to start being outted in about five years. Some sort of flash-like technology is going to have to start coming in or computer speeds are going to plateau. PRAM maybe.
Not for personal use, anymore. I have an open-reel deck that has only been used to transfer tapes to digital format in the last decade. I wouldn’t even consider recording a tape on it.
At work, we had been using Zip disks up until about this time a year ago. Now I don’t miss them at all. There is still a large library of tapes dating back to the 1950s that need to be transcribed before they dissolve into a gooey mess. We have only two open reel machines left, out of a total of 20 that were in use five years ago.
I haven’t made a cassette of music for my own use since 1999, when we got our first computer. I wonder what I’m going to do with the hundreds and hundreds of tapes I have stashed away in a box. Throwing them out seems too…I dunno…final. All they do now is take up space, like the three hundred or so VHS tapes I also have in boxes. One of these years, I will learn how to transfer and process them onto DVD, because there are a lot of items on them that have never been rebroadcast and probably never will. Then I’ll be in the same position: what do I do with all these things?
The only Elcaset deck I’ve ever seen was in a stereo store in Hamilton, ON, the year when they came onto the market. I’ll bet the only people who still have one are either former employees of hi-fi shops who collect vintage gear, or are Sony technicians. Because it looks like almost no one bought one, despite the increased fidelity and better specs than cassette decks.
I’ve actually never seen the picture from a Betamax VCR, nor known anyone who owned one. Nor ever heard quadrophonic sound, for the same reason.
Yesterday was the Big Basement Organization Blowout at the Stairs household, and I ran across a bunch of 3.5" floppies. For about two seconds, I thought about finding my floppy drive and seeing what was on them. Then I figured that if I had made it this long without them, how important could they be? So I tossed them.
And I found a shrink-wrapped set of audiotapes on breathing exercises. I looked on eBay and found that I might be able to get $2 for them. So they will either be tossed or donated to a charitable organization (which will surely end up tossing them).
Where would zip drives be common: Computer labs at Montgomery College in Maryland.
This may qualify as a submission for “Most Ignorant Thing” thread somewhere else on the SDMB, but I’m under the impression that modifying a file on a USB drive is a lot slower than modifying it on a zip disk.
I preferred using the zip disk because I didn’t have to copy the appropriate stuff from the USB to the PC’s hard drive. I could modify it quickly right there on the drive. I was always a little paranoid about leaving something on the PC hard drive after I logged off; either forgetting to copy it back or forgetting to erase it from the hard drive.
Hey, maybe I’m just a dinosaur and I need to “wind my watch.” :smack:
First of all: How’s life on Rockville Pike? I was NOT expecting to hear a reference from my home. A lot of my Wootton classmates ended up at “Harvard on the Pike.”
Second: You guys have no idea about outdated media storage. I still have to use the MICROFICHE reader on occassion. There’s been times when the Clerk of Courts will have to go get the Official Record Books in order to find a clear copy of an 1895 land deed or some such. I remember thinking when I was in grad school that when I got a job I wouldn’t have to use any more backwards technology. And I still use a digital camera with floppies. So there’s a 3.5" drive on my computer, too.