Take a trip with me back in time to 1999. Where were you in those pre-Y2K days? I was a student at Illinois State University, a Geography major with a stack of Zip disks containing digital maps and files, stored alongside my manual cartographic drafting tools (I located the old drafting tools in my basement, but have not found the old Zip disks…yet).
Back in the old days, Zip disks stored ten times more (100 MB!) than a floppy disk. With a bunch of those floppy disks also floating around in my backpack in college, the Zip disks seemed like such an improvement.
100 MB!
In the age of cloud storage - AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure - Zip disks and drives are seemingly relics of the past, with storage capacities significantly lower than today’s technology. For most, I would say that if Zip disks and drives have not been discarded, that they are sitting in a storage area, attic, or basement collecting dust. Speaking of which…
Bringing the Old Tech to Life
A Water Utility client recently asked us to find out what data lives on old media, such as ZIP disks and CD’s. I was presented a box of disks and CD’s, along with a dusty Zip drive, and we headed back to Cloudpoint HQ.
A box of old media and a slightly clean Zip drive from a client. What treasures await?
My first observation was that my Dell Windows 10 laptop was no match for the Parallel Port interface of the Zip drive. I needed to purchase a Parallel Port-to-USB adapter.
Once the adapter arrived, I tried again to connect it to my laptop. The next issue- I could not get the Windows 10 laptop to recognize the Zip drive.
I researched the issue, and came to the conclusion that the best bet was to try this with an older Windows machine (Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, etc).
The client found an old Windows XP machine, so I packed up and headed to the client site (safely of course in the COVID era). I actually had the office to myself while everyone was fixing a water main break.
I had to borrow a power cable to power the computer, and then find a mouse and keyboard with PS/2 ports. With a quick search of the office, I found what I needed, on a shelf next to some old water meters. These long forgotten items, along with the computer, needed a quick cleaning before proceeding. Did I mention there was a lot of dust?
A keyboard and mouse with PS/2 ports that had not been used in years became part of the task to extract data from Zip disks in 2020.
A 2002 Windows XP machine powers on and starts up…
Extraction & Conversion
Extracting data from the Zip disks to modern storage devices.
With the computer connected to a monitor and XP starting up, it was time to connect the Zip drive and discover what kinds of data was stored on the Zips. In the 7 Zip disks that were reviewed, I found that most items were PDFs and AutoCAD files of water distribution features- valves, hydrants, service lines, etc. from the time period of 2003 to 2010. Subsequent findings on the CD’s in the box found similar files. The CAD files are in the process of being converted to feature layers in a file geodatabase. If nothing else, the data provides a historical record, and even though the coordinates may not be as accurate as the current data collected with GPS, the attributes of the old data may provide some answers to fill in any gaps in the current data.
If now is the time to find answers to your GIS questions, whether it involves shiny, new technology or knocking the dust off of old technology, contact us here, or give us a call at 877.377.8124.
