Forget Floppy Disk, Embrace SuperDisk! 1999 Panasonic LS-120 Digital Camera Retrospective
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Date: 2024-08-24
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Comments and reviews: 20
KomradeMikhail
I've been singing the praises of the LS-120 SuperDisk since it was new. And I was never even a Mac user.
I still include one in most of my retro PC builds. They are better than zip drives in every way.
They are supported in most PC BIOS, from Pentium I (including some late i486 mobo's, all the way up to at least Haswell, possibly beyond.
They don't actually require drivers, or software. You can boot from them.
They came in IDE, SCSI, Parallel, and USB. Internal and External.
You can crack open an external enclosure to get an internal drive.
They also read and write HD 1. 44 floppies faster than a regular floppy drive.
No Click Of Death.
I'm sure I'm forgetting a few other highlights.
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I've been singing the praises of the LS-120 SuperDisk since it was new. And I was never even a Mac user.
I still include one in most of my retro PC builds. They are better than zip drives in every way.
They are supported in most PC BIOS, from Pentium I (including some late i486 mobo's, all the way up to at least Haswell, possibly beyond.
They don't actually require drivers, or software. You can boot from them.
They came in IDE, SCSI, Parallel, and USB. Internal and External.
You can crack open an external enclosure to get an internal drive.
They also read and write HD 1. 44 floppies faster than a regular floppy drive.
No Click Of Death.
I'm sure I'm forgetting a few other highlights.
reply
enilenis
Back when I was too poor to afford a digital camera, I used to stare at Mavica's at a store. I loved the idea of writing to floppies, as flash was outrageously expensive. My first Canon came with 8MB. I missed out on that era, but later at thrift stores I got my chance to replenish the collection and get a series of Sony cameras and accessories. I just love the sound of a floppy drive. A camera can last for 6 hours on a single charge. The photos have a retro look. What's not to love! I'm only missing one Mavica that works with a memory stick to floppy adapter that I have. Spent $75 on it, only to find out that none of my Mavica's could use it.
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Back when I was too poor to afford a digital camera, I used to stare at Mavica's at a store. I loved the idea of writing to floppies, as flash was outrageously expensive. My first Canon came with 8MB. I missed out on that era, but later at thrift stores I got my chance to replenish the collection and get a series of Sony cameras and accessories. I just love the sound of a floppy drive. A camera can last for 6 hours on a single charge. The photos have a retro look. What's not to love! I'm only missing one Mavica that works with a memory stick to floppy adapter that I have. Spent $75 on it, only to find out that none of my Mavica's could use it.
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DynamixWarePro
I am always interested in old digital cameras and it is great to see you covering another one, especially since I have used Panasonic cameras for years and didn't know about this one. Nor did I know about LS 120 Super Disks until I saw The 8-Bit Guy's video 108 Rare and Bizarre Media Types The disk sounds in it remind me of the sound of an old printer. I like the early 2000s look of the images, even with the washed out color, which is in contrast to Panasonic cameras color science today which is more on the vibrant side.
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I am always interested in old digital cameras and it is great to see you covering another one, especially since I have used Panasonic cameras for years and didn't know about this one. Nor did I know about LS 120 Super Disks until I saw The 8-Bit Guy's video 108 Rare and Bizarre Media Types The disk sounds in it remind me of the sound of an old printer. I like the early 2000s look of the images, even with the washed out color, which is in contrast to Panasonic cameras color science today which is more on the vibrant side.
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channelzero2252
My Dad had a SuperDrive (roughly 25 yers ago) to back up any accounting he did (he's a handyman and the local government wanted tax information quarterly. I was impressed - 120MB in a floppy disk form factor - and not impressed - I can't use these anywhere except on my Dad's computer! Anyway, by 2001 he had a CD burner and the rest is history! Why did CD-R/W's win Because there were no proprietry formats of CD.
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My Dad had a SuperDrive (roughly 25 yers ago) to back up any accounting he did (he's a handyman and the local government wanted tax information quarterly. I was impressed - 120MB in a floppy disk form factor - and not impressed - I can't use these anywhere except on my Dad's computer! Anyway, by 2001 he had a CD burner and the rest is history! Why did CD-R/W's win Because there were no proprietry formats of CD.
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Freskabri
Every time I see chicken alley I get so excited I love that alleyway, and really hope I can get back to the area soon to look at it again! And visit the local candy shop, of course (though it's been more than a few years- unsure if it's even there anymore)
On a more relevant note, what a great little camera! I'd love for one with the same picture quality and aesthetic. though maybe with a proper sd card slot lol
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Every time I see chicken alley I get so excited I love that alleyway, and really hope I can get back to the area soon to look at it again! And visit the local candy shop, of course (though it's been more than a few years- unsure if it's even there anymore)
On a more relevant note, what a great little camera! I'd love for one with the same picture quality and aesthetic. though maybe with a proper sd card slot lol
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MissMTurner
5: 30 omg! Countryside Mall is a 15 minute drive from me. Its in Clearwater right on the major north-south road, Us Hwy 19. Fun fact, Countryside has an ice skating rink inside. Nothing took over the Sears fully when it closed, but the bottom floor became an external only (no mall entrance) Whole Foods. The upstairs old Sears part is still empty. Anyway, just amazed to see something so close to home.
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5: 30 omg! Countryside Mall is a 15 minute drive from me. Its in Clearwater right on the major north-south road, Us Hwy 19. Fun fact, Countryside has an ice skating rink inside. Nothing took over the Sears fully when it closed, but the bottom floor became an external only (no mall entrance) Whole Foods. The upstairs old Sears part is still empty. Anyway, just amazed to see something so close to home.
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kabuki7038
Man, I love the delicious and tasteful digital crunch of cameras from back in the day. I feel like the old Flip camcorders were the last of that kind of thing. I'm surprised no coked out tech billionaire has thought to create some kind of modern line of cameras or attachment for smartphones that replicates this using purposefully outdated sensors and lenses or something.
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Man, I love the delicious and tasteful digital crunch of cameras from back in the day. I feel like the old Flip camcorders were the last of that kind of thing. I'm surprised no coked out tech billionaire has thought to create some kind of modern line of cameras or attachment for smartphones that replicates this using purposefully outdated sensors and lenses or something.
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thejackal007
10: 58 Is that Adam Koralik
I also love the chunky whirring of cameras like this, though I've not had a chance to try one out myself. What is it about these old things that seems to improve with our age, Clint
Also, I sometimes forget to always watch your videos with CC on since the captioning around the music starting (or intensifying) always gives me a laugh.
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10: 58 Is that Adam Koralik
I also love the chunky whirring of cameras like this, though I've not had a chance to try one out myself. What is it about these old things that seems to improve with our age, Clint
Also, I sometimes forget to always watch your videos with CC on since the captioning around the music starting (or intensifying) always gives me a laugh.
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mrmosk2011
I spent about $1000 on my first digital camera, which was a Casio. It used CF cards, which were typical 32MB or 64MB in affordable prices. There were so many different floppy like disks to help bridge the price gap to the flash drives. Even IBM and Hitashi came up a micro hard disk drive in CF card size. I still think that's quite amazing.
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I spent about $1000 on my first digital camera, which was a Casio. It used CF cards, which were typical 32MB or 64MB in affordable prices. There were so many different floppy like disks to help bridge the price gap to the flash drives. Even IBM and Hitashi came up a micro hard disk drive in CF card size. I still think that's quite amazing.
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WookieeMonster1
Had an internal LS-120 in my system back then. I had high hopes for the format, but the drive tended to be a little touchy at times. It worked just fine most of the time, but 5-10 percent, it had various issues. Then, of course, it just didn't get widespread adoption and disappeared. Flash memory & CD-Rs came in and ate their lunch.
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Had an internal LS-120 in my system back then. I had high hopes for the format, but the drive tended to be a little touchy at times. It worked just fine most of the time, but 5-10 percent, it had various issues. Then, of course, it just didn't get widespread adoption and disappeared. Flash memory & CD-Rs came in and ate their lunch.
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lazygamereviews
My family had a USB LS-120 for our Second Edition Bondi iMac! The fact that it could use regular floppies as well as the LS-120 made it crazy easy to write up a paper and print it off at school. The disks and drive were also way more reliable than Zip drives. Until re-writeable CDs and burners came out it was super useful.
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My family had a USB LS-120 for our Second Edition Bondi iMac! The fact that it could use regular floppies as well as the LS-120 made it crazy easy to write up a paper and print it off at school. The disks and drive were also way more reliable than Zip drives. Until re-writeable CDs and burners came out it was super useful.
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MadeleineTakam
All 7 of the remaining SuperDisk (LS120) Drives I own, no longer work. Build quality is dreadful. However, the 4 SuperDisk 240Mb I have still work and can write 32mb to a floppy disk. I have about 200 LS120 disks all can be read by the SuperDisk 240. The best version is the Que! SuperDisk 240MB FD32MB
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All 7 of the remaining SuperDisk (LS120) Drives I own, no longer work. Build quality is dreadful. However, the 4 SuperDisk 240Mb I have still work and can write 32mb to a floppy disk. I have about 200 LS120 disks all can be read by the SuperDisk 240. The best version is the Que! SuperDisk 240MB FD32MB
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DriveCancelDC
Clint you should check out the Canon D30 from 1999/2000, sort of a landmark camera from Canon due to the CMOS sensor. it basically delivers images that look like today's cameras in terms of colour output, very impressive as most cameras even 5 years after the D30 release were still using CCD
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Clint you should check out the Canon D30 from 1999/2000, sort of a landmark camera from Canon due to the CMOS sensor. it basically delivers images that look like today's cameras in terms of colour output, very impressive as most cameras even 5 years after the D30 release were still using CCD
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lazygamereviews
My God, just now realizing my dad spent $900 on a camera 25 years ago. Even though I used it a few times, I always assumed it was a Zip drive inside there. We didn't have another drive or extra disk, so it was basically just internal storage for the camera as far as we were concerned.
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My God, just now realizing my dad spent $900 on a camera 25 years ago. Even though I used it a few times, I always assumed it was a Zip drive inside there. We didn't have another drive or extra disk, so it was basically just internal storage for the camera as far as we were concerned.
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AerisAquata
I have a newer (but still pretty old) sony CD mavica and it's great because it shares cords and batteries with my old sony camcorder. Modern replacements for old electronics batteries are great and I just got a set of Kastar batteries for my Panasonic Lumix that are working great!
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I have a newer (but still pretty old) sony CD mavica and it's great because it shares cords and batteries with my old sony camcorder. Modern replacements for old electronics batteries are great and I just got a set of Kastar batteries for my Panasonic Lumix that are working great!
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lemagreengreen
LS-120 just came around that little bit too late. It was still pretty successful though, it had some big advantages over Zip and for a few years it was being included with a lot of new PCs, I think if they had got it out around 1995 they would have had a huge success.
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LS-120 just came around that little bit too late. It was still pretty successful though, it had some big advantages over Zip and for a few years it was being included with a lot of new PCs, I think if they had got it out around 1995 they would have had a huge success.
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Hordes_Of_Nebulah
I've been around Asheville / WNC my entire life so your camera reviews always hit home since I see some of these spots almost daily. I remember taking similar photos on terrible 2000s digital cameras back in the days of the much more aesthetic BB&T building.
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I've been around Asheville / WNC my entire life so your camera reviews always hit home since I see some of these spots almost daily. I remember taking similar photos on terrible 2000s digital cameras back in the days of the much more aesthetic BB&T building.
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Atsumari
Honestly Clint the fact that it even is recognized by modern computers puts this thing in a league in its own. I know so much old tech I use that when I plug it in on an Apple anything or PC. anything not time specific it just explodes. These guys made a beast here.
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Honestly Clint the fact that it even is recognized by modern computers puts this thing in a league in its own. I know so much old tech I use that when I plug it in on an Apple anything or PC. anything not time specific it just explodes. These guys made a beast here.
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cbmsysmobile
I used LS-120 in the late 90's. More reliable than ZIP and handily backwards compatible. CD-R was also available at the time and I had a CD-R drive, I used that for write-once media, and LS for rewritable. CD-RW was still too pricey being very new at that time.
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I used LS-120 in the late 90's. More reliable than ZIP and handily backwards compatible. CD-R was also available at the time and I had a CD-R drive, I used that for write-once media, and LS for rewritable. CD-RW was still too pricey being very new at that time.
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ceepdublu
These were great at the time! I traveled Europe for a month with one of the floppy versions and the pictures were surprisingly decent-ish. Came across some of them a few months ago and was actually shocked that they were better than some of my old cell phone pix.
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These were great at the time! I traveled Europe for a month with one of the floppy versions and the pictures were surprisingly decent-ish. Came across some of them a few months ago and was actually shocked that they were better than some of my old cell phone pix.
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