PALMZIP.SYS

PalmZIP is a device driver, which enables the use of Iomega's ZIP-drive together with a variety of DOS-compatible palmtop computers, even if Iomega's driver won't work.

Handicaps of Iomega's driver:

• Requires DOS 4.x or later
• Does not run on a 8086 processor (requires at least an 80186 or NEC V20 CPU)
• High memory consumption
• Long delay during boot process

• DOS 2.x or later
• 8086-CPU or better
• Parallel port (Standard port is sufficient, bidirectional supported)
• Iomega ZIP-100-drive, parallel port version. The ZIPplus-drive and late ZIP-100-drives are NOT supported. Please check if your drive works with the demo version of my driver. See also Jeffrey Hayes' notes about palmZIP's compatibility with his computers and drives.

• Disk formats: Works with normal ZIP disks under DOS 4.x or higher. Under older DOS-versions, the special formats "3xFAT12" or "3xFAT16" must be used to divide one ZIP disk into 3 partitions of 32 MByte each.
• Size of the driver: approx. 3 KByte. In addition, the utility programs ZIPMAN (for format and configuration) and ZIPCOPY take about 2 KByte each.

• PalmZIP is available since 1998. The current driver version 1.27 has been released in January 2020.
  A free DEMO-VERSION is available: PALMDEMO.ZIP (32K). I'm happy to receive your feedback.
• Price for the unrestricted version: 8 € (via E-Mail) or 12 € (disk and printed manual, incl. p&p for Germany)
• How to order:

  	By clicking this button, you can submit a payment through PayPal and I will send you your licenced palmZIP driver by e-mail, usually within 1-2 days (please check your spam folder, too).
  	You may also send me an e-mail to order palmZIP or if you have any questions.

You can download a free service pack which contains add-ons and updates for the utilities that come with palmZIP:

• ZIPMAN 1.43 (Format and configuration tool). New version: Jan 2020!
• MDEXTERN 1.01 (for Atari Portfolio only)
• ZIPCOPY 1.1 (copies complete PofoZip-partitions within one disk)
• LPT_TEST 0.20 (checks if palmZIP can use its bidirectional mode)

How to access partitioned disks from your desktop PC:

Iomega's driver assigns only ONE drive letter to the ZIP-drive. Therefore only the first partition can be accessed through it. Stefan Matthaeus got around this problem by replacing SCSIDRV.SYS by ASPIDISK.SYS from Adaptec. The corresponding lines in CONFIG.SYS could look like this:

DEVICE = ASPIPPM1.SYS 049 FILE=ECR.ILM SPEED=10
DEVICE = ASPIDISK.SYS /D /R3

On reboot, three new drive letters will be created which correspond to the partitions of the ZIP-disk.

How to access partitioned disks from Linux:

• The kernel module called ppa needs to be loaded. If your drive requires the newer imm driver, it is not compatible with palmZIP!
• The three partitions can then be mounted e.g. using the devices /dev/sdc1, /dev/sdc2, and /dev/sdc3.

How to access partitioned disks from an Atari ST computer:

Atari users can access partitioned Zip-disks like described in the following German article edited by : ATARIZIP.TXT

Hint: Mobile power supply using NiCd-batteries

In addition to palmZIP, PofoZip has been developped as a driver for the Atari Portfolio.

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