pendell

Current Hyperfixation: Wizard of Oz

  • He/Him

I use outdated technology just for fun, listen to crappy music, and watch a lot of horror movies. Expect posts about These Things. I talk a lot.

Check tags like Star Trek Archive and Media Piracy to find things I share for others.



Everyone in the retro tech community has Their Thing, I've noticed. Everyone. They might dabble in other fields, but they all have A Specific Thing that their interest is centered on, and all other interests simply revolve around that central one.

Mine is removable storage media. I've never been totally certain why, but I think it's just the tactility of it - normally digital data is inscrutably "inside" the computer, to put it on some strange Object and take it out and hold it in your hand like you've captured a pokémon just fascinates me.

And the more obtuse, awkward, outdated, and proprietary, the better! USB drives? SNORE! Optical discs? Mildly interested (DVD-RAM is the exception, that format is EXTREMELY interesting). Floppy disks? Interesting, but far too pedestrian yawn. ZIP disks? Now we're getting interesting. JAZ drives, SyQuest, Bernoulli boxes, Magneto-optical, that ORB drive I found at a discount electronic supply store one day and upon research was developed by a company composed of disgruntled ex-SyQuest employees, who SyQuest successfully sued out of business for pilfering trade secrets in the development of ORB, making the 2.2GB version somewhat rare and the 5.7GB version essentially vaporware? YES.

I own an internal ORB 5.7GB drive and two disks for it and despite never having gotten it to work properly, I will NEVER get rid of it because holy shit.


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