9-track tape drive to borrow? (Kent, UK) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

24 May 2006

Hi all,

One of the guys working on restoring the EMAS OS for ICL mainframes as part of 
the Edinburgh computer history project asked me yesterday if we knew of anyone 
with a 9-track SCSI tape drive that he could borrow in order to read old OS tapes.

Does anyone on the list based in the Kent area have one that he may be able to 
borrow or access? I get the impression he does have occasional access to a 
drive somewhere further afield, but being able to hook something directly up 
to his PC (or at least minimise travel) would greatly aid the restoration process.

We're probably going to run EMAS on our ICL 2966 mainframe if the Edinburgh 
guys can get a working install for that platform together. We *may* have a 
drive that we could loan out, but I thought I'd ask in case someone closer to 
the guy has one sitting idle.

See http://history.dcs.ed.ac.uk/history/EMAS for a bit of EMAS history, and 
http://pink-mouse-productions.com/icl/bob.htm for Bob's own pages (scroll down 
for a nice photo of the sort of thing we hope to recreate at Bletchley)

cheers

Jules