HP tape drive novel repair

Mike wrote... ---- Those 7971A cabinets are HEAVY, even without the 7970E! I'm very limited by space and rack availability. The 7970 came in the 7971. I took the whole rig to VCF East last year, along with a 2645A, a 2647A and a PC to run the HPDrive emulator, with RTE-6/VM. This year I'm exhibiting a TRS-80 Model 4. :-) ---- HP->TRS80 (due to weight/bulk) I SO get where you're coming from lol My last exhibit at VCFMW was single board computers, for that same reason! I'm not 100% sure yet, but my plan/hope is to bring all three bays to VCFMW and exhibit a running 2000/Access installation. I'm dreading the carriage and may still back out, but I'm still shooting for it. We'll see. Maybe. Perhaps if another collector wants to meet me in St. Louis to help load, and ride with up to VCFMW that would make it more palatable. I dunno. I've never been quite set up correctly to focus on RTE (due to TSB and RTE wanting different hardware configs), but after this particular build (and hopefully the exhibit), I'll add some things to allow me to easily run RTE. How did that HPDrive work out? I haven't done that yet. If I was to mount a PC in one of my HP racks with a 2100 or 21MX, I just don't think I could sleep at night. ---- I'd like to find a 7906H, if such a thing exists in the wild any more. ---- I've been able to find a pretty fair number of 7906's. Because my (current) os of choice is TSB, the H version (HPIB) is not an option. So any H's that I got, I converted to D's (swapping one board and some cable assemblies). If you want to spend cash, I know several commercial folks that are still selling the 7906's (either flavor). ---- I really like the looks of the desk systems, like the 3000 Series 48. Space-wise though, I'm on the lookout for a reasonably priced Series 42. There's been one on Ebay for months for $1,725 but I consider that excessive. ---- Yeah, I've been eyeing the same one. I would LOVE to have it... but in my (few) more sane moments I realize I just don't have the time/focus to take on another architecture these days. Best, J