Macinography #4: The Rise and Fall of Iomega's Zip Drive

Join us for the third episode of Macinography, where we look at influential hardware, software, and ephemera of Apple and Apple-related subjects. Every Mac user needed a place to store their stuff. Floppies were flunking in the nineties, and hard drives weren't portable enough to bring jobs from place to place. Long chained to the expensive and finicky SyQuest system, Mac users longed for a change. Iomega came a-courtin', promising a hundred megabytes in a speedy, small, and most importantly, inexpensive enclosure. Iomega rode this drive to historic success, but would it just be a one-hit wonder? Listen to find out how it all happened.

Sources / Notes:

Macworld July 1989 Macworld July 1995 Macworld November 1998 MacUser July 1995 Fujifilm USA Data Sheet: Zip Disks and ATOMM Coating The Computer History Museum's Oral History of Syed Iftikar Gibson Research C|Net Fortune Magazine August 1999 Company Histories: Iomega and SyQuest

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You can find Dan on twitter @kefkafloyd and Jake on twitter @jakepugh. We’re available on your podcast platform of choice, and if you like us, a five star rating or review would be greatly appreciated. You can visit our website at icongardenshow.com or post in the Ars thread by going to bit.ly/tigsthread. Some interstitial music used in this episode is courtesy of the Youtube Audio Library and it was composed by Jeremy Blake. Thanks for listening, and we’ll catch you next time.