I'd also
be curious to hear from Ashley (or others) how reading old
DECtapes goes - do you ever have "sticktion" problems? or see stick-shed
syndrom?
(ah, I remember watching os/8 load off a dectape unit connected to an 8/i
running tss/8... It had 4 8/l's slaved off it and 'served' the dectape
drive
up to which ever asked for it)
-brad
I think that Al Kossow has lots of experience reading old DECtapes based on
the good DecTape archives that he has on bitsavers. Al, can you share a
little of your experience and insight with the rest of us? How well do these
things hold up 30-35 years later when they are actually being read and
written to on a TU56?
IIRC, DECtapes are a really cool design, the magnetic surface is sandwitched
between two layers of plastic (or is it mylar), and as a result don't have
the issues normally associated with tapes.
Hmmm, this reminds me, I've a fair sized box of DECtapes I should find and
see if Al wants to read.
Zane