12 Sep
2002
12 Sep
'02
3:26 p.m.
At 06:18 PM 9/12/02 -0700, you wrote:
You have to reformat them but yes, the OLD PC tapes work fine in the
HPs.
I'd be somewhat surprised. I thought there were some mechanical
differences between DC100 cartridges (HP and DEC) and DC2000 cartridges
(40 MB & up, found on PCs and Macs in the 80s).
There are differences between the DC 100 and DC 2000 tapes. That why I said to get the
***OLD*** 40Mb tapes such as used by the IRWIN tape drives. They are DC-100. A couple of
years ago you could find loads of them surplus but now most of what I find are DC 2000
tapes. The most obvious difference is the width of the tape and the thickness of the
plastic cartridge.
Just be carefull who you tell about that. The DECheads get real
sensative to anybody putting DEc stuff to REAL work. :-)
I've got quite a few reels of DECtape, and I can't imagine how you
could possibly jam them into a cartridge tape slot, nor how they could
be expected to do anything useful if you di.
Presumably the tapes in question are TU58 tapes, which are unfortunately
known as "DECtape II".
You're probably right. I have used any of them in several years.
I have a
4951. It uses the same tapes as the HP-85, HP 9825, etc.
IIRC
they're DC-100 tapes and you can use the same (40MB?) tapes that were
used in PCs.
Really? Didn't know the PC tapes would work in the older drives.
Given that the storage capacity of a DECtape and an old PC backup tape
are so wildly different, I didn't assume the media was compatible even
if the shell would fit in the drive. You can also reformat and use DECTapes.
Right. That's what my boss used to do. I have plenty of
4951-formatted DECtapes to last me a while (5-10, IIRC).
Anyhow, the big problem with reformatting them for use on other systems
is that there is no known way to format them back into TU58 tapes if
you ever need any. :-(
Did anyone ever tell you that a tape in the hand is worth two in the bush? :-)
Joe