[rescue] Source of magneto-optical disks?

[Mr Ian Primus]

I've used MO drives for a long time, ever since the "pre-CDR" days, when I happened on a couple of used 128mb drives at a computer show for a couple of dollars. At the time, I remember finding a surplus outlet online and purchasing a couple boxes of 128mb cartridges for something like five bucks each. (These are the 3 1/2" MO disks). At the time, Zip drives were the hot new thing - but I had these neat little optical disks. Great for backups and the like.

Since then, I have found that they're great for moving data among various old machines, since the drive is pretty easily supported from nearly any OS. I used them on my Amiga, and it was a great way to get data back and forth to the PC and Mac hardware.

I have been looking on eBay, and I see some of the 128mb cartridges, and I just bought 20 of them (got outbid on a lot of 100... grr..). Most of the disks on eBay seem to be the 5 1/4" versions - I just don't have the drives for those. I have a couple of 3 1/2" drives that I use, some only handle 128mb cartridges, but I also have a 230mb drive, and a 640mb drive. I'm looking for more media. Are there any good vendors out there that have these things for a reasonable price? Not many places seem to have the 3 1/2" disks, and the ones that do have rather high prices. I guess I should probably just keep checking eBay, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask here...

-Ian