14 Aug
2008
14 Aug
'08
1:35 p.m.
On 14 Aug 2008 at 16:06, Paul Koning wrote:
Sure, but SCSI didn't necessarily cure these
issues. I still have a
4mm DAT drive from Colorado Memories (or some name like that --
acquired by HP years ago). If I remember right it comes with a SCSI
controller, and it works with that controller -- but not with any
other SCSI controller. And it requires proprietary software that was
promptly discontinued by HP.
I can still use that drive but only because I still have the Win95
system that can support the software, and the floppies it came on.
I wonder which drive you have (T3000 maybe?). I've got at least one
Colorado, several Archive and a few drives with the HP logo, all 4mm
DAT and they all obey the standard command set and pretty much work
on any mainline SCSI controller. In particular, the Archive is a
magazine loader and obeys the SCSI command set for autoloader
"robots".
OTOH, the Colorado floppy tape drives were pretty awful.
We tended to advise customers to stick with the more established
controllers. Adaptec 154x, 2840, 294x. There was a lot of
variability among controllers, but we found the common Adaptec models
to be the most consistent in their support. The 2920 (really a
rebranded Future Domain model) was less dependable.
Cheers,
Chuck