4 Oct
2009
4 Oct
'09
6:10 a.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, October 03, 2009 8:20 PM
Subject: Re: 8MM Tape drives
On 3 Oct 2009 at 19:39, Nico de Jong wrote:
I'm not very much in reading very old stuff, so you can be right on that
point.
1/2" tapes is also one of my favorites, normally. I recently had a job for
the UN, where I had to read some 60-70 tapes originating from west africa.
And they hadn't bee stored correctly. Some of the tapes had mould on them,
and one had mould from the outside and about half an inch inwards (mould on
the "sides" of the tape). Some also stitched, so I had quite a job reading
all of them.
The oldest floppy tape product I've seen, is the MicroSolutions BackPack. I
believe it is from the late 80's. They also had a QIC-80 product. Horrible
system. Don't know about Cipher.
Nico
Just the principle of writing a tape through the
floppy interface,
disgusts me. Formatting a tape takes a very long time; ISTR about an
hour. Must have been invented by the devil.
I suppose where we diverge is on the long-term stability of QIC.
I've seen my share of very old QIC (>20 years) and can't say that I'd
put it as high as you do. 1/2" tape is okay, as long as it isn't one
of those awful brands that shed like crazy.
Aside from 1/2" tape, the oldest reliable storage medium I have is 8"
floppy--and various paper products.
Wasn't floppy tape invented by Cipher? The 525 is about the oldest
floppy tape drive that I know of (still have one sealed in its
original packaging).