Al K. wrote:
The 4709 manuals are about to be uploaded to bitsavers.
They are hard-sectored.
Isn't the model number for the floppy subsystem 4907?
I might be wrong, but that's what I recall.
They are hard-sectored floppies, definitely. I can't remember the
sector count, though.
Since the 4907 is GPIB-based, perhaps a PC with a GPIB card in it, and
some suitable code could prove successful at archiving the content of
the floppies in a form that is longer-lived. I doubt, though, that I'll
ever have the time to pursue it.
I inherited a bunch of Tektronix-branded floppies with one of the
systems (4051) that I got some time ago.
Don't know who the OEM was, but they are still good after all these
years.
The Tektronix-branded DC-300 tapes are really bad. The oxide comes off
very easily, and the tension bands are almost always broken. I got a
box of unopened NOS Tektronix-branded cartridges, and found that each
and every one, even though sealed in a plastic bag, had broken tension
bands, and oxide was separating from the tape.
The 3M-branded tapes definitely seem to hold up better -- I have a bunch
of old 3M DC-300A's as a set that were part of the UUNET Unix archive,
and they are still solid to this day. Anything Scotch-branded is
generally useless. Perhaps Tektronix OEM for the DC-300 tapes was
indeed Scotch.
In any case, Al -- Thanks for putting the docs online!
-Rick Bensene