2 Sep
2005
2 Sep
'05
4:25 p.m.
On Fri, 02 Sep 2005 00:41:10 -0700
Brent Hilpert <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca> wrote:
Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
Where I worked, in the late 70's, it was the NEWER drives that had
vacuum columns. The old drives were the ones I had to deal with the
most. It was a COM facility so the only thing we ever did was read
tapes, but they came from all over the place (different customers).
Also, it was only the NEWEST drive that had 6250 bpi. Mostly we dealt
with 800 and 1600 tapes, and with drives that had switchable 7/9 track
heads. I wouldn't call vacuum column drives an icon of EARLY
computers...
On Tue, 30 Aug 2005, Brent Hilpert wrote:
Yeah, well, they're just neat, that's all. Side-by-side-reel
vacuum-column tape drives:
#2 on the list of iconic aspects of early computers, although I take
#it from it's
appearance and what you and William are saying that these (3420s) are
late models(last of the breed?).
The sad part is that at least two of the control
panels look like
they may have just been stripped from complete units.
There's nothing terribly special about the 3420 drives. I mean, who
(beside my insane self) is going to want one? And if so, for what,
other than gawking at it?