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I have prepared a new blog with wordpress at https://vintagecomputing.info !!!

Thank you.

During my search for an easy transfer possibility from my modern i7 PC to my old IBM PC/XT, I was realizing that I forgot one thing... my old parallel port Iomega ZIP100 drive.

But I was early disappointed from Iomega's driver support. The GUEST software for DOS needs at least an AT machine (286 and above). Don't know why, may be because of the memory usage of Iomega's software.
But there was hope. Klaus Peichl, a german software author, wrote PALMZIP.SYS, which runs even with the oldest IBM PC. Unfortunately I already read something about compatibility issues also, so I was a bit sceptical. This was not necessary, because even my newer ZIP100 drive (DDXZ100P2) runs smooth with that PALMZIP.SYS version 1.22.


Boot with that driver works like a charm:


And that's the reward for all effort:

It makes sense to use at least MS-DOS 4.0 or above to get the drive space in one piece.

I am using a ZIP 250 USB drive for my modern PC, drivers are included in Windows 7 (no need to look for dedicated drivers).

See related link for the source of PALMZIP.SYS ... it's truely worth it's price.

Not funny, but instructive.
I've tried to add a bigger SCSI drive to my PC/XT system, which uses a Seagate ST-02 controller. At the moment, it runs well with a small Conner 3040 HDD (= 40MB), but I liked to have a bit more HDD capacity.
So I obtained a Seagate ST51080N, which has in fact 1080MB capacity, but still a 50 pin interface. Unfortunately I was able to read some messages about Seagate ST-02, which describes a limit for bigger HDDs - but not clearly described what limit, but it seems to be related with the older ROM version of the controller.

So I decided to upgrade the BIOS from 3.0 to 3.32, found at http://ftp.mpoli.fi/hardware/ROM/SEAGATE/ ... but someone made a mistake describing that ROM.
It was NOT Seagate SCSI BIOS V3.32, but SyDOS SCSI BIOS V3.35 (but still based on Seagate's SCSI ST-01/ST-02 BIOS). It had some additions for Sygate's EZ135, which sounds nice, but was not helpful for getting bigger drives working properly.

I ended with using the Conner 3040 again, which works with the old BIOS version as well as with the new BIOS version.

Conclusion: Don't trust on file descriptions, nor on user messages about compatibility of old hardware. Seagate's ST-01/ST-02 is only able to operate with drives less than 1024MB. Nothing else.

Excuse my conversion to a picture, but simplephpblog does not support tables.

Introduction of VGA in April 1987 changed all, so my list seems to be less complete from 1988 towards...

Take a look at
http://monkey-hole.co.uk/esa/os/
for very early beta versions of Windows, there are even virtual machines (for Microsoft Virtual PC) to try something strange like Berkeley 2.11 BSD.
A bit simple/poor boot screen also for Windows Chicago Build 73, although it's very rare:


To remember: There is also an interesting blog which covers a lot of different virtual machines: http://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/

Original 5.25" floppy drives in IBM PC or IBM PC/XTs are less wide than later selled floppy drives from other vendors (like TEAC or EPSON), that means 145mm from IBM, 147mm from others. And so 3.5" drive adapters are also too wide.
I was trying to add a second 3.5" floppy drive, but I couldn't. After 10 minutes, I gave up - I have the finding to rasp something from the side frame (about 1mm from each side).
This is really annoying. Only after expiriencing this for myself, I was able to find something about it in vintage-computer.com forum ... and all that after more than 30 years of IBM PC launch :-(