[plug] ZIP/JAZ/SPARQ drives

[John Darrington]

> 
> One thing that worries me about the internal Zip is dust.  External
> drives don't have the fan constantly drawing dust in.  The QIC tapes
> (Colorado/HP) etc tend to die after a few months in dusty offices with 8
> hours a day running.  Is the door of an internal Zip tight-fitting?

Dust is a problem with all cheap PC's these days.  Anyone who wnats to run a PC
with any sort of reliability can expected to get dust in all their drives, clogging
up any mechanical parts.   

There is a reltively simple cure.  Take the PSU out.  Pull out the fan, and mount it
the other way around, so that it's pulling air in rather than pushing it out.  Then
the inside of the PC has positive pressure instead of negative pressure.  You also
need to buy a little filter, and a set of replaceable elements, and chnage these on
a regular basis.

A few years ago, all equipment was _manuanfactured_ like this.  I wonder whose bright 
idea it was to mount the fan back to front, and use the drives as filters anyway?  And
why was the rest of the world dumb enought to follow suit?