gerisullivan: (Steel sculpture)
[personal profile] gerisullivan
...78 to go.

I haven't had a ZIP drive of my own since moving a little over a year ago. That didn't stop me from moving all of my ZIP disks, of course. I might need that data some time, don'cha know? As if having it is the same as being able to access and use it....

Last summer, one of the publishers advertising in the the Worldcon Souvenir Book sent the files to us on a ZIP disk. I borrowed a USB ZIP drive after confirming it worked with my current Mac. The idea was that I'd not only be able to get the ad files I needed, but that I'd also use the opportunity to retrieve all that data lurking on my ZIP disks. I can put it all on CDs, thus ensuring that they, too, will soon be as obsolete as ZIP disks are. Remember SyQuest 44s? They were ubiquitous. the data storage and transfer coin of the graphic realm for years. Well, two or three, at least. Until they weren't. ZIP disks held twice as much, cost less than a quarter that of a SyQuest cartridge, and were sturdier and more compatible to boot. Win, win.

That story has been on a repeating loop for years now, and it truly is a marvel, yes, it is. Hey, some of the files I'm copying are even in formats I can still open and use. I'll be surprised if I ever do, of course. Well, except maybe for the 25 meg tiff of Bridalveil Falls that I'm copying now. Hmm. There's probably some other interesting art lurking in these archives.

Much as I wonder just why it is I'm doing this, it's a help on the clean, flat surface front. Not the ZIP disks themselves, they were in my office storage area, out of sight. And I'll most likely return them there, to sit next to all those 3.5" floppies, and...hmm...did I move the 5.25" floppies? Or save any of the 8" CPT disks? I think they went the way of the SyQuests. Before I started writing this update, I was making great progress on yet another flat surface here in my office while the ZIP drive was busy copying files.

It's getting downright interesting watching the file names fly by as I write. I couldn't resist looking at "langford.tiff" -- a black and white from 1995, scanned for the Minicon 33 program book, most likely. Either that, or an issue of Idea. The couple thousand art files currently being copied include the pictures from the BaggieCon Program Book in 1995. That was the big one, "BaggieCon 8: The Fanzine," I think.

Yes, yes; I know. Hey, [livejournal.com profile] fredcritter, I just poked my way through the basics of ImageEvent. It looks like there's a lot to like about the service; have you run into any "gotchas" yet? I also took a quicker look at fotki, which [livejournal.com profile] lsanderson and [livejournal.com profile] dlacey both use. Comments, folks? Recommendations? Do any of these services have a reputation for raising their prices or adding new fees? (They're certainly good at making their pricing structure hard to find, if tonight's forays are any indication.)

Okay, all of that websurfing really took my focus off the file transfer job at hand. I'm going back to clearing flat surfaces.

Closing ZIP count: 21 disks copied, 65 to go.
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