Eureka!

I am not suprised. It's the only standard interface that would make any sense at all. Yes. I've seen some 3 digit option codes where the first digit indicated the host computer it was to work it (4xx numbers for the 9845, etc), but that was probably just specifying the driver software tape to include. I assume you can't convince them to leave you alone with the interface for an hour :-). At which point, of course you unscrew the back shell and note down the jumpers, and also buzz out the connections between the connectors. Incidentally, I am looking for jumpers/wirelists for any of the options other than 085... I am pretty sure the 9825 does have some kind of 'private' file capability -- even the 9830 does. On the other hand, it's just a bit set in the file header or something, so it is _possible_ to duplicate them. HP must have had a way of doing this (they didn't protect each individual tape they shipped, surely :-)). The 9877 is a very low level device (like the tape controller in the 9825). It works at the bit level. It doesn't even turn those bits into bytes/words (the internal 9825 controller does use DMA, but it transfers data to/from the LSB of the memory words only. Software then repacks that into bytes/words!). The 9877 is similar -- my guess, without proof, is that it uses the DMA capability of the 98032. It could read a block from one tape into a buffer in the 9825, then write it out to another tape. Note there's no internal hardware to automatically copy between tapes or anything like that -- all transfers must go via the 9825 memory. So the 9877 hardware is surely capablable of copying a protected tape. Whether the software prevents you is, of course, another matter. -tony