The Gelatinized Horse (or Son of the IBM Graphics Emulator)

It's hard for most people to stop beating a dead horse. Human beings are stubborn creatures by nature-- we're the lineal descendants of the amoebas that weren't satisfied with floating around on the prehistoric ocean.

We could have just stayed in the gene pool, kicked back and relaxed. But NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
We're the ones who just had to grow legs, so we could crawl onto land, create civilization and spend our time eating Hickory Smoke Flavored Spam and watching America's Funniest Sodomy Videos on Fox.

Americans (who put not just one but two Bushes in the White House) are an especially stubborn species. It's not in our nature to give up, no matter how overwhelming the odds. The central thread of both the Vietnam War and the 99-00 stock market implosion is the phrase "Let's hang in there because it's got to get better-- after all, it can't get any worse."

But sometimes it can get worse-- and at such times, it's better to remember the chorus of Kenny Rogers's The Gambler and cut your losses. In the early 80's, I belonged to the Atari Computer Enthusiasts of Cleveland. Every two months, the club had a "Technology Showcase" where regional hardware and software vendors could show off their product.

At one such meeting, a gentleman presented a new program for our consideration: a software emulator that let you simulate the graphics capabilities of the IBM PC on your Atari 800 computer.

The 50-odd people in the room sat spellbound. The Atari 800 had its problems (a marketing department that decided to sell the machine in Toys-R-Us, poor tech support, a higher list price than the Apple 2 and quality issues on every new release). But its graphics and sound processing (as befitting its "game machine" image) were the best on the market.

Neither the Apple nor the Commodore could measure up; the CGA display on the IBM PC couldn't come close. It was like offering a carburetor that you could install if you wanted your Porsche to accelerate like a Yugo.

Eventually we started asking questions based on the assumption that we'd misunderstood the purpose of the product

After 3-4 questions like "Can I use the program to simulate the Atari display on an IBM, so I can port Atari games over?" or "Can I use this to run IBM programs on the Atari?" the guy got a little snippy and told us that all you could do was emulate the IBM display on your Atari because that was all it had been designed to do.

At which point, I put up my hand. "Well, I don't mean to be rude (actually, after sitting for 15 minutes listening to this, I didn't care), but what earthly use is that? Why would anyone want to buy a program that would do that?"

After a long pause, he said "Our original goal was to develop a program that would let the IBM emulate the Atari display. In time, we determined that the project was not possible with our existing technical capabilities.

"But by that point we had already gathered quite a bit of knowledge about the graphic displays of both machines and we had logged a great deal of development time. This product is an attempt to leverage those assets in some way."

With the tact for which I am known and loved, I replied "You're saying, in other words, you couldn't write a program that was useful-- so you wrote this instead?" The presentation ended, amid considerable laughter, less than a minute later.

I wouldn't put the Iomega ZIP 750 in that league... but it's nearer to that extreme than it is to being useful.

From Grease to War

When it was released in 1995, the ZIP drive was a pretty neat thing. For $150, you could get a device that could plug into your printer or SCSI port and store 100 megabytes of files on a disk that cost only $12.

The ZIP drive and disks were pretty easy to carry around. You could attach the drive to any computer, install the software and read and write files to and from the drive.

For many years, ZIP drives were the best option. Portable, rewritable CDs were available, but they cost $500-750. The units broke easily and were difficult to install and configure on a computer. They required CD 'burning' software (often $100-200) which often crashed. And the CDs cost $3-5 each.

Unfortunately for Iomega, time marched on. Every machine now comes with a CD player, so anyone can read a CD. CD-RW drives (which now sell for about $100) are standard equipment on many machines being sold today.

I can buy rewritable CDs for $2 at Walgreens and under a buck at OfficeMax. I can get CD-Rs for about 20 cents each.

And when I find a machine with no CD drive? Thanks to broadbasnd, I can transmit 100 megs in less than 20 minutes now.

At one time, I was "hopelessly devoted" to ZIP drives. But lately, I've been using ZIP drives instead of floppies at home--when I didn't feel like waiting for a CD to burn.

But with my new wireless network, even that need is gone--begging the question that both Bruce Springsteen and Edwin Starr once asked.

So when I received an e-mail from Iomega saying that I'd won a brand-new Iomega ZIP 750 drive as thanks for participating in one of their marketing surveys... well, you could say that I was a little underwhelmed.

Is This Trip Really Necessary?

In fairness, the Iomega ZIP 750 hasn't changed for the worse. In fact, it's greatly improved:

• The drive itself is about 60% smaller (in size and weight) than the old "big blue boxes" and it comes in an attractive metallic silver.

• The size and weight of the power cord and transformer has been reduced by 90% from the old clunkers. If you buy the model that plugs into a "Firewire" port, it doesn't even need a power cord.

• The installation consists of two steps: plug in the drive and run the installer.

• Transfer speed has improved by several orders of magnitude, and the drive hasn't "hung" even once.

I've heard people say that the Iomega software crashes under XP. I haven't noticed any problems, and I've installed the drive on Windows 98, WIndows 2000 and Windows XP machines.

My only complaint--the version of the drivers included on the CD was about 18 months old. But it didn't take long to find the latest driver on the web site and pull it down.

I've never had a problem with Iomega's chat-based support. It's been fast, knowledgeable and helpful.

The only problem I have with the product is that it makes virtually no sense to own it any longer. If you just need to carry files around from place to place, a rewritable CD can be used in more machines and costs less.

If you need to copy several hundred megs of files to and from a machine, there's virtually no difference between the time it takes to burn the CD and copy to a 750 ZIP drive.

If you use Adaptec's "portable CD" utility, you can read and write files to the CD as quickly with a CD-RW as you can with a ZIP.

Iomega had one interesting idea to try to rejuvenate the format. Their "Active Disk" utility lets you install applications on a ZIP drive, without needing to write anything to the registry of the computer. This lets you carry the ZIP disk around, stick it into any machine with a ZIP drive and run the application from that computer without any installation.

It's a neat idea-- and it might be useful if Active Disk offered any software that you might possibly want to use. The best known title compatible with the utility is the Windows Media Player, which isn't exactly a killer app.

The additional space on the ZIP might be helpful if there was a large difference. But a 50-meg difference isn't enough to make a good argument for the product--and the difference between the cost of a ZIP 750 ($15) and a CD just isn't worthwhile.

I like Iomega, but the ZIP 750 is an example of what happens when you beat a horse until every bone in its body disintegrated into gelatin. The 750's inability to write 100-MB disks means this model isn't even a good choice for people who have a lot of old ZIP disks that they'd like to keep.

As Kenny Rogers said, You got to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em. The time has come to walk away from Iomega's flagship product-- and if you own the company's stock (once at $120, now at $12), you better know it's time to run.