29 Aug
2013
29 Aug
'13
9:31 a.m.
On 08/29/2013 07:26 AM, Jerome H. Fine wrote:
I normally use OLD (very rare and have been unable to
find
them any longer) wooden Q-tips. I imagine that the cardboard
ones are almost as good. Squirt a bit of isoproponal on the tip
of the Q-tip and remove the junk from the head. Sometimes,
it is necessary to clean the head after every tape. In that case,
just leave the TK50 drive on the bench connected to the PDP-11,
but ready to be cleaned each time. The cleaning time is less than
five minutes once there is access to the tape head. It is usually
necessary to remove the TK50 media first.
Those are still very much around and currently manufactured. I use them
on 8" disk drive heads quite a bit. For example:
http://www.amazon.com/100pc-X-Long-Cotton-Swabs-Applicators/dp/B005IHM9FE
eBay also shows several offerings. The search term that I used was
"long wood cotton swabs". I'd be surprised if your local druggist could
not manage to locate a batch for you.
--Chuck