Warning about Iomega Zip Drives on eBay being advertised as SCSI (Z100S) but actually being Parallel port (Z100P) versions

[LaPorta]

@bibilit
on that footnote, i think that partially the scsi-vs-parallel blame really lays outside iomega as well tho .. parallel apparently was introduced well before 1980 then scsi for in 1986 but umm ok yeah if parallel was db25 in the first place then how come scsi had to decide to be exactly physically the same db25 too without even using any kind of blocker pin/notch or anything? (meanwhile thankfully centronic ports were incompatible on purpose weirdly enough, c36 for parallel versus c50 for scsi)

Part of it is who would want to fit that 50 pin massive kludge of a port on the back of their Mac Plus back when?

As an aside, I always found Apple’s solutions more elegant. PCs were always more “dumpy” to me. Much larger serial ports instead of the mini-DINs on the Plus and up. Being able to use ADB to plug the mouse into the keyboard vs two dedicated, separate PC ports. I’ve often wondered just how much cable and sheath have been needlessly wasted over the decades by PCs requiring mouse cables 3x as long as Apple’s (continuing into the USB era for no good reason other than PC manufacturers either being too lazy to put ports in their keyboards or shortening the mouse cable).

My final diatribe is the biggest beef I have: Backspace and Num Lock keys persisting into the present day. Apple correctly changed Backspace into Delete once ADB came along since the key no longer put you back a space but deleted a character. Nearly 30 years later, PC makers still call it Backspace. There have also been arrow keys for a good 30 years: using the number pad as arrows and swapping them using a Num Lock key is utterly pointless. Nothing drives me more bonkers when I use a PC at work, start typing in numbers, and all that happens is the input cursor dances around…grrrr!

 

[Melkhior]

@Melkhior a lot of relatively expensive peripherals also decided to use db25 too

Apple had a lot more volume than workstations/servers vendors using SCSI. Once the connector was introduced with the Plus in '86, device manufacturers started using the DB25 for Mac-oriented products - cheaper cable! Once those were available, some other consumer-focused manufacturers unrelated to the Apple ecosystem followed suits for cost reasons and compatibility with existing hardware. I would expect the vast majority, if not all, of the devices and non-Apple hosts using DB25 to have been introduced on or after 1986 and somehow consumer oriented (including e.g. samplers, synthesizers, etc.).

The likes of Sun, Apollo, HP, IBM, DEC, etc. never used DB25. The extra cost of HD50 was negligible for them by then, and added reliability to longer SCSI chains. They also had some use for HVD (High Voltage Differential) SCSI for the same reason, which Apple (and all other consumer markets) never used.

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

As an aside, I always found Apple’s solutions more elegant. PCs were always more “dumpy” to me

Part of this is due to Apple controlling its own ecosystem vs the PC world having no similar oversight. Apple can decide to go newer tech, like ADB, and bang, it's done. They also force the sale of new kb's and mice to boot. Dell, for example, couldn't have similarly pull off the same switch without possibility of losing market share unless the rest of the industry is also making switch (hence PS/2 lagging by several years).

Same reason Apple led with USB, Firewire, removal of floppy drive, etc.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

My final diatribe is the biggest beef I have: Backspace and Num Lock keys persisting into the present day. Apple correctly changed Backspace into Delete once ADB came along since the key no longer put you back a space but deleted a character. Nearly 30 years later, PC makers still call it Backspace.

PC keyboards have delete keys, which delete the key ahead of your cursor. Personally I don’t mind the difference in naming between the two platforms.

 

[LaPorta]

PC keyboards have delete keys, which delete the key ahead of your cursor. Personally I don’t mind the difference in naming between the two platforms.

They have forward delete keys which are mislabeled just delete. Mac keyboards correctly label them as forward with a right-facing arrow.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

Imagine if some genius manufacturer had simply made a PS/2 keyboard with two end connectors, a single cable into the keyboard, and then a female mouse port on the keyboard so that you could connect a mouse directly to the keyboard.

Why in the world didn’t anyone ever think of doing that?

 

[chelseayr]

i agree about most mouse cables being too long (too obvious with desktops and even pretty much look bad with any laptops), and as for backspace-vs-delete umm sorry to cause another minor offtopic flame in here but can someone tell me why I can't find the key named 'return' anywhere on the pc keyboard? hehe
(oh..umm yeah I have one major annoyance about certain newer laptops..hmm uh oh..maybe should just think of a title for a new non-iomega topic..)

 

[LaPorta]

Imagine if some genius manufacturer had simply made a PS/2 keyboard with two end connectors, a single cable into the keyboard, and then a female mouse port on the keyboard so that you could connect a mouse directly to the keyboard.

Why in the world didn’t anyone ever think of doing that?

Is PS/2 able to do that? I always assumed it was some old-school thing like the Mac-Mac Plus Keyboard/mouse setup.

 

[LaPorta]

i agree about most mouse cables being too long (too obvious with desktops and even pretty much look bad with any laptops), and as for backspace-vs-delete umm sorry to cause another minor offtopic flame in here but can someone tell me why I can't find the key named 'return' anywhere on the pc keyboard? hehe
(oh..umm yeah I have one major annoyance about certain newer laptops..hmm uh oh..maybe should just think of a title for a new non-iomega topic..)

Thank you. That was the other I left out: no separation of Return and Enter keys.

 

[LaPorta]

Sorry for the derailment. On with the Zip seller bashing!

 

[MrFahrenheit]

Is PS/2 able to do that? I always assumed it was some old-school thing like the Mac-Mac Plus Keyboard/mouse setup.

PS/2 isn't like ADB. The PS/2 keyboard and PS/2 mouse are different.

However, they could have used double the wires in the cable, with two connectors at the computer end, and a female connector on the keyboard. Thus allowing the keyboard cable to act as the mouse cable extension all the way from the computer to where the keyboard was situated. Then just a 2 foot mouse cable would have worked well.

 

[Melkhior]

Is PS/2 able to do that?

Yes and no. PS/2 is single-device, so you can't daisy-chain. However, there were some motherboard sockets that had a second pair of wires in the connector to two devices could be connected to a single external port in a non-standard way. They usually required a splitter cable, but it would have been conceivable to embed the splitter functionality in a keyboard - though I don't know of an example.

Edit: new link.

 

[mikes-macs]

It's funny that you mention this "buyer beware" topic this week as I did just purchase an external Iomega Zip 100 drive on eBay last week. I was specifically looking for a SCSI one which I made sure of before buying. You're right many postings were incorrect and some did not even post a photo of the back connectors for me to verify. Needless to say, they were the postings that did not get the sale. Thankfully the one I found, the seller had a clue, posted it correctly, and knew what it was they were selling, plus also posted photos of the connector.

Iomega definitely should have distinguished the Zip models more appropriately, knowing full well connecting it to the wrong board will cause damage.

 

[Phipli]

Thank you. That was the other I left out: no separation of Return and Enter keys.

I had someone briefing me on using a mainframe a while back, it confused them that I already knew that enter and return are different. The mainframe used enter to enter data and return as LFCR.

 

[LaPorta]

Iomega definitely should have distinguished the Zip models more appropriately, knowing full well connecting it to the wrong board will cause damage.

To argue the other way, I would venture that Iomega (and any other company, for that matter) is not interested nor concerned about “second hand” sales of their products. Their boxing clearly indicated what model was what. Their supply chains distributed them appropriately. If there was virtually no chance of someone accidentally receiving a parallel model in a SCSI box, and vice versa, that’s all that mattered to them. Why would they bother to wonder if someone purchasing one second-hand years later without accompanying box or documentation would mess something up?

 

[Melkhior]

Iomega definitely should have distinguished the Zip models more appropriately

In addition to what @LaPorta said, at the time the two models would not have been available side-by-side. Macs didn't have a parallel port so Mac-focused shops would not have carried the 100P, while PC-oriented shops wouldn't have bothered carrying the more expensive 100S when SCSI was quite rare and high-end on PCs. Only large electronic chain stores would have had both, and they would have been in different aisles for Mac and PC, as would have been standard at the time.

 

[chelseayr]

I know its not quite the same kind of theme but I guess the "famous" wrt54 was somewhat a little generic too .. you had one with modest amount of ram, then one that had little ram, then yet another was later resold 'with more ram again for linux hacks', etc meanwhile except for the bottom serial label indirectly giving it away all of them looked pretty much exactly the same?

 

[mikes-macs]

Why would they bother to wonder if someone purchasing one second-hand years later without accompanying box or documentation would mess something up?

Because the two models share the same identical connector type as already pointed out and because of the significant damage that can be caused by connecting the wrong one. But I suppose the eBay seller should take on more responsibility in getting the correct specs posted for the one they are selling or at least post photos of the rear where the connector is.

Kudos to those that have the time to reach out to eBay sellers to inform them of their laziness.

 

[croissantking]

Caveat emptor lol

 

[LaPorta]

Because the two models share the same identical connector type as already pointed out and because of the significant damage that can be caused by connecting the wrong one. But I suppose the eBay seller should take on more responsibility in getting the correct specs posted for the one they are selling or at least post photos of the

Again, though, none of this is Iomega’s concern. I’ve purchased a car programmer before that has a FireWire-style port that the instructions warn you “Do not connect to a computer”, since you might be tempted. If the instructions weren’t with it, anything could have been possible. Not the companies problem.