On 11/10/2022 4:26 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
The 8900 uses the Mammoth AME tapes, but can read
earlier tapes. I like
the 8700 (and 8505XL) for the regular oxide tapes. I don't think I've
ever received so much as an inquiry regarding the Mammoth metal tapes.
That was near the end of the 8mm media (1999) when other formats, such
as DLT and DDS were gobbling up the market. IIRC that the AME tapes
were stupid-pricey.
Yeah, we had Exabyte Mammoth tape drives for a while in changers at
AAAS. They had a serious reliability problem which was not good for
backup tapes, so we went to IBM LTO and the IBM tape changers. Those
worked well.
The Contemporary Cybernetics 8505's were pretty much bulletproof, I
should get it inside and fire it up to see if anything works. Had
hardware accelerated compression and was pretty quick for the mid 1990's
technology.
--Chuck