17 Dec
2005
17 Dec
'05
11:32 p.m.
[1] The CCR-81 is notorious for being not very
trustworthy with one's data.
If you're looking for a Tandy data tape deck, search for the CCR-82 -
*very* good deck.
The really bad one in my experience is the CTR-80. This was supplied
with some Model 1's and had a really nasty design bug. When turned off by
the remote socket _in play mode_, the erase head would put a glitch on
the tape.
On a Level II machine, the tape would be turned off if there was a
checksum error in the last block read. So if you had a temporary error (a
speck of dirt on the tape or something) which caused a bad read, the tape
would stop and the _next_ block would be ruined. That tape would never
load again.
The work-around was to pull the remote-control plug and use it in manual
control mode only. The fix, IIRC, was to solder a 10uF capacitor in
parallel with the erase head.
-tony