IBM 9348 9-track tape drive

On Friday 17 June 2005 08:16, Al Kossow wrote: These 9 track SCSI tape drives (HP 88780) were AKA 7979A, 7980A, 7980XC/SX. The were OEMed by a LOT of manufacturers, including IBM, Sun, Tandem, etc. BTW: I downloaded the service and user manual from Al's site - and also found more information (IIRC parts list) on the Sun website. I've got two of them, one of which is shared between my DOS/Linux PUTR/Teledisk/RT "universal" copy machine and my PDP 11/83. Once cleaned and adjusted (if necessary) I have found them very reliable reading and writing 1600 and 6250 bpi tapes (neither of my drives support 800). They are a bit aggravating if a program fails to "observe" EOT - and read until the tape is totally on the take-up reel. You have slide the drive out, open the cover, rethread the tape by hand, "rewind" manually past the EOT, close it up and then power up and rewind. Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"