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Copyright © 1998 by Ed Kahn. All Rights Reserved
Moving files back and forth between a laptop computer and a desktop machine is a task that is often more difficult than it need be. Amacom Technologies Ltd. has just released their Flipdisk that promises to make the job a lot easier. The Flipdisk is a hard drive that is connected to a PC Card that flips out from under the unit and plugs into your laptop computer. On the other end of the Flipdisk is a parallel port. A cable will connect the Flipdisk to the parallel port of your desktop machine.
This is an arrangement that lets you move files back and forth between the two machines with ease. Unfortunately, the Flipdisk does not install as easily as I might hope. In fact, you have to install drivers in both the laptop and the desktop machines. But once that is done, the task is easy. Just connect the drive to the computer of your choice and call up the Flipdisk program.
The Flipdisk comes in sizes ranging all the way from 2.1Gb all the way up to 6.4Gb. With disk doubling, you can easily double these capacities. It is the great capacity of this device that makes it stand out. With a Zip drive you can easily transfer small files between computers, but when it comes to backing up a system or transferring large files, nothing short of a hard drive does the trick.
The other use of the Flipdisk is to add additional storage to an all too small hard drive. These days it is fairly easy to buy a larger drive, but this one saves the trouble and works flawlessly. In addition, you have portability. It is easy to carry this drive from one location to another. It comes in a nice compact carrying case.
When you use the drive as a parallel device, you must attach the cable to the printer port and then connect a line from your keyboard port to the Flipdisk in order to provide power for the unit. When you run it from the PC Card slot, however, it gets its power directly from the card.
I find this arrangement a good deal more convenient than alternatives such as using cables to connect computers. In future releases, however, I wish that the installation could be less cumbersome. Other hard drives I have used with portables rely upon drivers already inside Windows 95 or 98. I am not sure why Amacom chose to set their product up in this way.
The bottom line is that while there are a number of products that will let you move files between laptop and desktop machines, this is the only one I know of that has an interface to both a PC Card slot and a parallel port. If you have need for such a device, this one is worth checking out. After initial installation, it is a breeze to use.
This product is a British offering, but Amacom Technologies
is handling distribution in this country. Their phone number is
650-566-4905. Prices range from $449 for the 2.1Gb model all the
way up to $719 for the 6.4Gb unit. The parallel adapter is an
extra $29. Amacom provides drivers for almost any operating system
you are using all the way from DOS through the Windows systems
and includes NT and OS/2. This package will work on your computers.