For generic drives of either 800 or 1600, there were Pertec formatters
that drove the three cable Pertec interface (read / write / motion) and
was compatible with the P1 P2 parallel formatted interface.
The ones I had were one format or another. And they had to be strapped
to the speed of the drive. I am not sure if the ones I had which had
one or 2 large boards would keep up with faster than 25ips drives.
They were about 5" high and mounted under the drive, with an option
switch or two on them. I did run them with a second tape unit daisy
chained on the parallel formatted side.
There was no way to run more than a single 3 cable interface. I've
never heard of a way to accomplish that with any controller.
The parallel formatted Pertec has unit select, but each drive went to a
unique connection. Any drive could be used standalone, as there was no
A unit / B type unit at all with the Pertec drives, anyway.
thanks
Jim
On 9/25/2017 11:02 PM, Paul Birkel via cctalk wrote:
Well, as others have pointed out, a "tape transport" is not the whole
ball-of-wax. You need the ability to format the tape into blocks and then control tape
motion in terms of those blocks. That's what you'd be responsible for in your added
electronics. From the Introduction in the Kennedy manual:
"The Model 9800 is equipped with the electronics
necessary for reading and writing tapes and for
controlling the tape motion. The head specifications
and the mechanical and electrical tolerances of the
Model 9800 meet the requirements for IBM compatibility.
However, the formatting electronics, parity
generator, cyclic redundancy check character (CRCC)
generator, gap control, etc, are not included and
must be provided by the tape control and formatter
in order to generate properly formatted IBM compatible
tapes."
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Anders Nelson
via cctalk
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2017 1:41 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: HP 7970E - interest to split?
Ah, yeah that's actually better for my purpose. I'm more concerned with the
data interface - can I just read and write bits at will or are there
contingencies as someone mentioned before?
=]
On Tue, Sep 26, 2017 at 12:06 AM Paul Birkel <pbir...@gmail.com> wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Anders
Nelson via cctalk
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2017 7:01 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: HP 7970E - interest to split?
Hmmm, interesting. How does the 7970 compare to the Kennedy 9800?:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kennedy-9800-9-Track-Data-Tape-Subsystem/232493086636
For the same price the Kennedy drive looks more beautimous...
=]
--
Anders Nelson
-----
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/kennedy/Kennedy_9800_Digital_Tape_Transport_Operation_and_Maintenance_Manual.pdf
8.5" reels (not the full size 10.5")
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/hp/tape/7970/07970-90885_7970oper_Dec76.pdf
-----
--
--
Anders Nelson
+1 (517) 775-6129
www.erogear.com
