6 May
2000
6 May
'00
7:18 p.m.
That is quite a find Don! The tapes are interchangable if you bulk erase
them first. I've got a bunch of TK50 marked tapes but very few TK70
marked tapes. Willing to trade! And no you can't just drop in the TK70,
at least in the Q-bus Vaxen they take different controllers and the
cable was a bit different.
--Chuck
Don Maslin wrote:
At the local swap this morning I picked up a virgin TK70 streaming tape
drive. When I say virgin, I mean it is in the shipping carton, is still
sealed in an anti-static bag, includes the manual, and also that sheet
of 'stickies' to make the meaning of various lights and such meaningful
to those who do not understand English.
In a discussion of COMPACTape II, it was stated that those tapes were
interchangeable with the earlier tapes in the TK50 drives. It was also
noted, as has been covered here several times, that if written to by a
TK50, the tape was readable by a TK70 but could not be written to by
a TK70. This is the first time I have heard that the use of the II
tapes in a TK50 was a factory authorized usage. Interesting! Perhaps
useful considering the scarcity of the older tapes.
Question: Can a TK70 be used as a 'drop-in' replacement for a TK50 in
a VAXstation 2000? If so, I would assume that it would NOT record at
TK70 density.
- don