Fishing around in my computer boneyard the other day, I happened upon an old 1997 Zip disk. A 100MB Zip disk, which was a popular form of removable storage about 15 years ago. The disk was labeled 1997. Who knows what magic memories it held?

Sometimes I wonder why I hang onto such old stuff.

I have a 14.4Kbps modem in the boneyard. I don’t know why. I don’t even have a land so there’s no place for me to connect a 14.4Kbps modem. In fact, I have a whole bin in the boneyard that’s full of phone jacks, connectors, splitters, and adapters. I know it’s there, but I just don’t throw it away. Weird.

For the longest time, I kept my old DAT tapes. These were 250MB tapes on which I once backed up all the computers in my office. I even had the DAT drive. The problem? The device ran on the old SCSI interface. I don’t have a computer with that connection, so I eventually tossed the DAT drive and all the tapes.

The DAT tapes were $80 each. The drive cost nearly $1000. Maybe that’s why I hung onto them?

Still, some things linger. For example, that 100MB Zip disk labeled 1997. Who knows what treasures it may hold? Why did I keep it? Perhaps it’s worth looking at.

Fortunately, among the detritus of my boneyard I have a few Zip drives laying about. One of them just happened to be a USB drive.

The first thing I thought was how cool it was that we actually had USB back in 1997. I had forgotten that. According to the intellectual rubbish bin of the Internet, Wikipedia, USB has been with us since 1996. So while the 1997 Zip disk may not have originally been used on a USB Zip drive, I just happened to have a USB Zip drive handy.

I plugged the drive into my PC. It was recognized and the software installed. Then I shoved the disk into the drive.

Time passed . . .

Eventually the disk was read. I opened its icon in the Computer window and . . . I was disappointed. It was backed up financial files from 1997 and 1998. Yawn. I was hoping for some media files, say photos or a movie or audio recording. That would have been sweet.

The lesson has been learned. I can now properly dispose of the 1997 100MB Zip disk. I don’t really need it, and I suppose if I keep it from laying about, the temptation to load it up and re-discover what’s on in 10 years hence will be gone. That might be a good thing.