On 06/09/2015 09:13 PM, Mark J. Blair wrote:
Thank you very much for the offer! If I'm not mistaken, that drive has a Pertec interface, though, like the Kennedy 9610 that I already have, so I think I will let somebody else have a crack at it. That drive model looks familiar; we probably had at least one in the computer room I worked in during college in the late 1980s, and I may have done a tape mount or two on them! Hmm, I guess I have yet another option: Once I fix the hub motor drive in my Kennedy 9610, maybe I could just make my own interface for it. Maybe a small FPGA to handle the interface signals, and an off the shelf microcontroller (like a BeagleBone Black board?) to give it a UI and interface it to the outside world. Much more effort, but also more fun! I may be able to borrow a SCSI-interface magtape drive locally, but I still wouldn't mind having one of my own. And I am still hoping to find a TZ30 drive.
Not complete off-topic, but I just received an email from Shaun Halstead that he's looking to get rid of a CDC Keystone drive (vertically mounted) (read: TU80 family, with Pertec interface) that was apparently used on a Xerox system.
If you're in the Chicago area and interested, you might want to drop Shaun a line at microf...@microfilm.kscoxmail.com
Any particular reason why Pertec IF isn't desirable? I'm coding now for a Pertec-to-USB interface board. How's that for an anachronism?
--Chuck
