I still hate computers

[mckitterick]

So I've been messing with trying to install an old Iomega 100MB Zip drive - just so I can remove any files from the disk before I send it to its new owner (eBay). Steps so far:

• First, I was naive and tried to just detect it. Ha. Ha.


• Next, downloaded drivers. After installing and restarting, nothing.


• Downloaded another version of the drivers. Repeat. Ha. Ha. HA.


• Walked through Iomega's troubleshooter for not detecting the drive. Got to Step Four, which involves modifying the computer's Ports settings to allow for interrupts and to use Plug & Play on the parallel port (oh, yes, the drive uses a parallel-port cable). No go: The settings will not change. Ha. HA. HAHAHAHA.


• Step Five: Fuck with the BIOS. Turns out my computer had the parallel port turned off. HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA! Turned it on. Restarted. Guess what?


• NOTHING! That didn't actually make the parallel port work yet! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!


• Blog about how I hate computers.


• Give up.

KILL ALL COMPUTERS.

That is all.

Chris

EDIT: PS - I forgot to mention that, because there's something wrong with my computer (BIOS, I think, even though I've flashed it a couple of times with newer versions), I have to restart twice to make it "take." Frickin' computers. This reminds me of the joy of Windows 98 days.

Comments

[ericreynolds.livejournal.com]

I hear you. HAL is alive and well.

[camillealexa.livejournal.com]

KILL ALL COMPUTERS

...before they kill you.

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

Let me tell you about being an English major without a word processor. The disk drive was not invented until the year after I had my BA....

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

<pedantic>

Actually, the disk drive was invented in 1956. Your profile says you finished high school more recently than that.

Wikipedia article

</pedantic>

[(Anonymous)]

Jobs and Woz invented the PC drives in 1971. Wikipedia does have limitations.

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

Actually, they used floppy drives made by Shugart. Woz designed the controller that allowed them to be used on the Apple II in 1978. I got one the following year.

The first stand-alone word processors with floppy drive storage came along earlier than that, and earlier still there were timeshare-based editor and formatter programs. I first played with them in the mid-1970s, but they existed before that.

Still, word processing wasn't something that could reasonably be called a consumer product until the late 1970s when personal computer word processing programs started to appear on the market.

[margaretq.livejournal.com]

Can I join in the mob lynching?

Although, I am told that if I would only become a Mac convert... nothing ever goes wrong. Plug-and-play brings supreme enlightment....

[emessar.livejournal.com]

I worked at a place where the graphics designer used a Mac. When they upgraded it to OS 10, several key pieces of software stopped working and tech experts had to be called in. I've also seen other Macs lock and crash, so I consider the whole "Mac is perfect" cult to be false.

Linux is the most stable, but you typically have to know how to dink with it to get everything to work in the first place. It typically means that most of your pain and suffering is front loaded.

[gmskarka.livejournal.com]

The issue of software having "stopped working" is most likely due to the people in question not paying attention, and missing the part that when OS X was rolled out, several programs needed to upgraded to their native OS X versions. Expecting them to work makes about as much sense as expecting a Windows 3.2 program to work under Vista. It wasn't a new version of an existing OS-- it was an entirely new architecture.

That was years ago, though --software is all OS X native now, and devices are (and always have been)plug-and-play.

So, decry the "cult" if you must, but there is a reason it exists.....

[emessar.livejournal.com]

I don't really have a problem with Macs or their users in general. They have their place and have things that they do well. I think that over time Macs and PCs have brought up their game on their weak points and are now roughly equivalent.

The only real problem I have is with a subset of Mac users that seem to think that Macs are vastly superior, flawless machines, that never crash. I've seen them crash, and not just using software that is disparate to their operating system.

They also seem to think that they are "fighting the big corporations" by purchasing from one of the most proprietary companies around.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Nah - my experience helping people like Kij with her new Mac suggests that you just have different kinds of problems, and because Macs are supposed to be idiot-proof, you can't fix 'em.

Give me a good old pain-in-the-ass PC over a Mac any time.

[emessar.livejournal.com]

I could probably loan you an old network card if you just wanted to dump everything to another computer.

[normalcyispasse.livejournal.com]

Did I ever mention that I once sued Iomega over a ZIP100?

quoted in a c-net article 10 years ago

copy of the settlement document

I wouldn't touch one again with a 10-foot pole.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Glad I've sold the thing!

[jensixstones.livejournal.com]

I've got an old Power Computing mac clone with an internal zip drive. If I recall correctly, it will read a PC zip disk. If you'd like, I can loan you the computer to get your files off your disks or you may drop the disks off and I'll burn you a CD of your files.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Oh, that would be great! Danke!

[weaselmom.livejournal.com]

"When you're up to your ass in alligators, it can be difficult to remember that your original objective was to drain the swamp." This is how I feel about absolutely anything having to do with computers anymore.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I miss working at the Evil Empire. We had access to everything so I was never in this position. Feh.

[stuology.livejournal.com]

I doubt you have a computer that is intelligent enough to do anything except what humans tell it to do. Curse at the BIOS programmers, curse at the engineers that made the motherboard, curse at Iomega and curse at yourself for ever even owning one. But the computers? Love the computers.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Ah! So true, Zen Master.

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

I wonder how much I could get for my old 250 MB Zip drive and a small pile of disks. I certainly haven't used it in ages, although as far as I can tell it still works on my Vista SP1 desktop. I wonder if the cash received would be worth the hassle of writing the ad.

My recent headache was getting Vista SP1 to load on that laptop. It insisted that I'd need a new version of the updater to run the update, but the updater also insisted that I'd need a new version of the updater to update the updater. Somehow, through some tinkering with Safe Mode, I managed to get it to work, although the updater in several instances refused to run in Safe Mode.

Another nuisance is that my still-perfectly-good USB scanner doesn't talk to the Vista desktop or the XP desktop. The Vista desktop replaced an older XP desktop, which had the proper drivers for the scanner, but Vista doesn't support the scanner's drivers at all. I tried hooking the scanner to the current XP desktop, but it too refused to recognize the drivers. My best guess is that the scanners had to be on XP before XP got updated too many times. Hard to say.

So, for now my "scanner" is a digital SLR with careful lighting and aim, followed by a pass through an image editor to perspective-correct the inevitable failure to aim perpendicular to the page.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

I think I got about ten bucks for my 250 ZIP with no disks.

I know that Vista won't allow software or hardware to run if it has stability issues, much like the change-over from 98 to 2000. Microsoft got sick of people blaming Windows for problems caused by third parties.