Test reports
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Test reports
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»First of all, you have to take the IOBlix out of the box. You will find a disk with the drivers, a slot sheet with the connector and a small circuit board. The IOBlix has to be connected to the clockport. Finally place the slot sheet in the designated mounting position in the case.
Now connect the ZIP100 to the parallelport.
After starting your computer, install the software for the IOBLix using the "Install" program from the floppy disk. After successful installation, run the programm "Install Parallel ZIP". This copies a device and a few dosdrivers to your harddisk, namely PZIP0 and PZIPC, the latter is for PC ZIP disks. After rebboting, you can format the ZIP disk for Amiga or for PC. Formatting a ZIP disk can take a long time. Fortunately you can use quick format. The formatted capacity of the disk is only 95MB. Why? I have no idea. The transfer rate according to SysInfo is about 168 kB/s. This is not very fast, so backups can take quite a while.
Well, the ZIP works now, but you have no tools, because Iomega only supplies PC software. (In my opinion, an untolerable situation, which is common in the whole peripheral producing industry, for example scanners, printers, etc.) :(
Several programs from Aminet can provide a solution. I've chosen Z100 from Thomas Omilian (Aminet: disk/misc/z100.lha), which is shareware (you have to send a music CD to the author). The good thing about Z100 is that it configures itself during the installation, all devices and units will be selected automatically.
The package contains:
| Frame Z100 | To create image files |
| Safe Z100 | To write- or read-protect the disk and to disable the eject button of the drive. (The eject buttons works again only after a reboot.) |
| Watch Z100 | Checks if the disk is write-protected etc. and starts Safe Z100 if needed (did not work for me) as well as a device and dosdrivers (I haven't tried them, weren't necessary). The documentation is available in german, english, french and swedish(!). |
| Note: | If you plan to use Windows9x ZIP disks frequently, you should consider to get yourself CrossDos7, which supports DOS 8.3, making it possbile to use filenames up to 30 characters long. A review of CrossDos7 can be found in Aminet. |
| Result: | With the IOBlix and Z100, you can use a ZIP drive (almost) as good as with the original tools from Iomega. Most people will have a lot of fun using the Iomega ZIP, and for all who need more than 95 MB on a disk, there is also the ZIP 250. I will test it in the next issue. |
Dennis Trabandt <HeartofSteel@gmx.net>«
