On Thu, Aug 27, 2015 at 11:39 PM, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote:
  If I'm not mistaken, TK70 drive can read but not
write TK50 tapes.
 I have very limited experience with this family of drives so far, but what
 little I have is not good. Pictures:
 
https://twitter.com/nf6x/status/617511461452013568
 https://twitter.com/nf6x/status/617519989721923584
 Maybe my tapes need baking or something to keep the oxide from shedding? I
 haven't tried it yet. Unfortunately, my failure mode results in a
 labor-intensive fiddly manual tape extraction job followed by manually
 rewinding tapes into cartridges designed to make it very difficult to do
 anything manually, so I haven't found the motivation to resume
 experimenting yet. If and when I resume experimenting, I might look into
 making some sort of gizmo to let me unlock the two cartridge spool locks
 and then manually rewind the tape, without needing to disassemble the
 cartridge with springs popping out all over the place. Maybe something 3D
 printed the depresses the latches, with a crank that engages the spool?
 
Yikes...I hope mine turns out a bit more reliable than that. As it turns
out, I bought a spare TK70 a while back at a hamfest and rediscovered it
the other day, so if all else fails, I guess I have that to turn to.
Is your 730 booting VMS yet?
Kyle