21 Nov
2012
21 Nov
'12
1:35 p.m.
On Wednesday (11/21/2012 at 02:09PM -0700), Eric Smith wrote:
Chris Elmquist wrote:
ooh. That is a really good point that I had overlooked. Particularly,
when thinking about buying a couple $50 non-DEC tapes! Thank you.
I've recently restored a DEC TU58
dual-transport tape system but am
finding that 30+ year old DC100A cartridges are perhaps past the end of
their useful life.
[...]
I am not interested in preserving the data on the
tapes as much as I
am interested in just having working tapes...
To have working tapes, you MUST preserve at least some of the "data"
on the tapes. The TU58 is not capable of formatting a blank or
non-TU58 tape. There apparently was some non-standard TU58 firmware
that could
format tapes, but no one seems to actually have it.
The hardware is simple enough that I've considered writing formatter
firmware myself, but that's one of a zillion projects that I haven't
gotten around to.
Now that I have known working transports, I could go down this path too--
but then I'm back to needing some working blank tapes again :-)
I have (4) unopened tapes and a few "beaters" that seem to still work
so this may be all I can work with going forward-- unless a replacement
belt scheme pans out.
Chris
--
Chris Elmquist