Kirk Wallace wrote: > I think Jon is talking about a different type of nine track. He has a > nine track 1/2" magnetic tape drive with a Pertec interface and needs a > Pertec to SCSI interface card because his doesn't work. This might be a > similar drive: > http://www.merry-xmas.net/9track/ > > I'm looking forward to seeing Jon's run again. > YUP, that's it. Mine are black, ordered by Western Electric to write call logging data from ESS switching systems. These drives will power down the vacuum/air bearing pump when inactive for a while, so handle very intermittent writing well.
I can't tell for sure if that is a 92181 (800/1600 BPI) or a 92185 (1600/6250 BPI) but it looks so much like mine I think it probably is a 92185. Probably one of the finest streaming tape drives made. I've seen a lot of bad ones, too. We had a Cipher 990 that never worked well, and consumed $80 read channel chips every couple months. We had a $10,000 DEC (Pertec T1000) drive that melted tapes onto the head. (That wasn't streamer but a vacuum column drive.) The fact that this CDC drive powered up and ran after sitting for 15 years or so is pretty amazing right there. It will run in start/stop mode at 25 IPS, streaming at 25 IPS or streaming at 75 IPS, and selects from those modes based on the data flow to/from the computer. I was the DECUS (Digital Equipment Corporation User's Society) tape librarian for the local user's group for a while, and it was a great boon to pick up 3 of these drives from a surplus outfit for pennies. But, even my primary drive has probably run less than 200 tapes on it, and the drives were new when I got them. Jon ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
