Break the ZIP Barrier

===========================================================================
                           Break the ZIP Barrier
  Frank Zündorff                        F.Zuendorff@ernie.mi.uni-koeln.de
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It's no mystery anymore, the SCSI version of iomegas ZIP-Drive is running
fine with Amiga computers equiped with a SCSI-hostadapter.  But a new
aspect for a ZIP-Drive is the feature to exchange Data on PC-formatted
medias.  What advantages brings it for you?

Now you can swap a large amount of data (like mods, pics, 3d-objects etc.)
without carrying a large container of floppy disks or moving your baby to
the next PC.

How does it works?

Quite simple.  You habe to create a working mountfile using Cross-Dos.
This mountfile is listed below and the only thing you have to do, is to fix
it for your hostadapter.  Okay here comes the file:

----- 8< ------------------------------------------------------------------

/* Mountfile for MS-DOS formatted ZIP-Media
 *
 * Creation-Date: 21-Nov-95 22:52:21
 */

/* Device driver parameters.*/
  Device = <name of your device-driver>
  Unit   = <5 or 6 - changeable via switch on the backside of the drive>
  Flags  = 0x00000000

/* Disk size parameters.*/
  Surfaces       = 1
  BlocksPerTrack = 1
  Lowcyl         = 0
  Highcyl        = 196607
  BufMemType     = 0
  Blocksize      = 512

/* File system parameters.*/
  Mask        = 0x7FFFFFFC
  Maxtransfer = 0x0001FE00
  Reserved    = 6
  Filesystem  = L:CrossDOSFileSystem
  Stacksize   = 2000
  Priority    = 5
  Bootpri     = -20
  Globvec     = -1
  Buffers     = 128
  Dostype     = 0x4d534800
  Mount       = 1
#

--------------------------------------------------------------------- >8 --

A copy of this file can be found in the ZIP-directory included with this
report.  The only thing you have to do, is to drag the "PCZIP"-icon and put
it into the "storage/dosdrivers" directory of your boot-partition.  Now
load your favourite editor and perform the fixes I'm discribing now.  First
move the cursor into the line starting with "device =".  Exchange the
following text with the name of your hostadapters device-driver name.  It
you don't know exactly the name, please check it out in the hostadapters
manual.  For example a A2091-user has to change the line in "device =
scsi.device".

The second step is to choose the right unit-number.  Please move the cursor
one line down starting with "unit =".  You can find the unit-switch on the
back-side of the drive.  If the switch is pointing to number five for
example, you have to put in the following line "unit = 5".  Now save the
mountfile.  That's all.

After mounting the file, you can put in a PC-formatted media und handle it
like any other device.

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