On 02/04/2016 08:25 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
On 02/04/2016 08:57 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
Some models of 3420s were 7 track.
Yes, I suppose there was a need in some installations to
handle old,
archival tapes. But, I certainly never saw one. Most
sites got rid
of their 7-tk stuff as soon as they could.
Some 6-bit systems hung around for a very long time. E.g.
CDC CYBER 170/180. 7-track drives for those never really
went out of fashion until well into the 1980s.
Here's a 1981 CW article that specifically mentions the
CDC 667 in the drive inventory of McDonnell Douglas
automation.DP center:
http://bit.ly/23MFZOb
I was there on a tour, a few years earlier. I think they
still had the model 195 at the time.
A vast facility filled with big blue boxes. The basement
had so many 415 Hz UPS's that you had to stick your fingers
in your ears.
Jon