Advice for tape drive repair / maintenance

Alexandre Souza wrote: Yes, but they're *there* for a lot of products, whether you want them or not. If they're not there, and are optional extras, and you pay an additional fee for them if you want them, fine. But that's not how a lot of products work - given an idea of target cost for the final product, development funds have been split up accordingly in order to realise the product; some will go to core functionality and others will go to the 'features'. Net result is that people end up paying for bits they don't actually need, and/or the core product isn't as good at its core job as it might have been because some funding went to the 'extras'. Computer software, by and large (to bring it back on topic!), appears to have gone the same way - in the old days separate software did one job only, but that seems to be less and less of the case these days (even Linux-based solutions aren't immune; it's becoming a real pain to sort out the bits you personally need from the bits that you don't). Hardware thankfully is resisting a little better; you can still mix and match the bits in your PC / Sun box / whatever according to your own personal requirements. There do seem to be a few manufacturers who are trying to change this, too. Which is great, and I'm not saying that you shouldn't be able to. But people should be able to pay for what they need, not the all-or-nothing approach which is often forced upon us. cheers Jules