25 Aug
2005
25 Aug
'05
12:16 p.m.
I picked one of these up a while back and stumbled across it yesterday.
It's a model TU80 IIRC. Does anyone have anyexperience with them? I've
never seen or heard of one in actual use but I know it's supposed to be
useable on the PDP-8 so I may try to hand it on my -8 if they're any good
(and I can find the right interface card). What kind of cassette tapes do
they use and how hard are they to find and format?
Joe
25 Aug
25 Aug
4:29 p.m.
>>>> "Joe" == Joe R <rigdonj
at cfl.rr.com> writes:
Joe> I picked one of these up a while back and stumbled across it
Joe> yesterday. It's a model TU80 IIRC. Does anyone have
Joe> anyexperience with them? I've never seen or heard of one in
Joe> actual use but I know it's supposed to be useable on the PDP-8
Joe> so I may try to hand it on my -8 if they're any good (and I can
Joe> find the right interface card). What kind of cassette tapes do
Joe> they use and how hard are they to find and format?
It wouldn't be a TU80, that's a half inch 9 track streaming tape drive
(predecessor of the TU81/TA81). Its controller speaks the TS11
programming interface (ugh).
What you describe sounds like a TA11. That's probably really the
controller name; I'm not sure what the drive is called. The 1976
PDP-11 peripherals handbook lists the TA11 (it's on Bitsavers).
The description says that it uses "proprietary DEC Philips-type
cassettes". What that proprietariness consists of is not clear; it
may mean that is has digital tape (square loop) as opposed to audio
tape in the cassette. Quite possibly a plain old audio cassette may
work (ferrite type -- but if that fails then chrome tape might be
worth trying).
paul
4:29 p.m.
I picked one of these up a while back and stumbled
across it yesterday.
It's a model TU80 IIRC. Does anyone have anyexperience with them? I've
never seen or heard of one in actual use but I know it's supposed to be
useable on the PDP-8 so I may try to hand it on my -8 if they're any good
(and I can find the right interface card). What kind of cassette tapes do
they use and how hard are they to find and format?
Joe
Interesting, I wouldn't think it would be a TU80 as I would expect that to
be a 9-Track. I thought they were for LSI-11 systems. Somewhere I think I
have a little bit of info on them, but probably not enough to be of any use.
Zane
1:48 p.m.
I did some checking on the net and one site says that they're model TU
60 not 80 and they're probably correct. They have a picture of a PDP-11/55
with one but it's too far away to see the DECassette clearly. I THINK it's
the fourth unit from the bottom in the third rack full height from the left
in this picture <http://www.xs4all.nl/~geerol/nl/GAL/groot/1155.html>. The
DECassettes aren't much to see, just a black box with two tape drives and
an open "pocket" for storing tapes.
Joe
At 01:29 PM 8/25/05 -0700, you wrote:
I picked one
of these up a while back and stumbled across it yesterday.
It's a model TU80 IIRC. Does anyone have anyexperience with them? I've
never seen or heard of one in actual use but I know it's supposed to be
useable on the PDP-8 so I may try to hand it on my -8 if they're any good
(and I can find the right interface card). What kind of cassette tapes do
they use and how hard are they to find and format?
Joe
Interesting, I wouldn't think it would be a TU80 as I would expect that to
be a 9-Track. I thought they were for LSI-11 systems. Somewhere I think I
have a little bit of info on them, but probably not enough to be of any use.
Zane
4:30 p.m.
On Thu, 25 Aug 2005 16:16:44, Joe R. <rigdonj at cfl.rr.com> wrote:
I picked one of these up a while back and stumbled
across it yesterday.
It's a model TU80 IIRC.
Hmm... are you _sure_ about that? The TU80 is a 42"-tall cab with a
flat mount (reels point at ceiling) 1600 bpi 9-track tape drive with a
pair of 50-pin formatted interface cables. DEC made an interface for
it, and it's compatible with several 3rd-party interface boards
(Dilog, et al.)
Perhaps you have a TU60? Audio cassette-sized cassettes, but with a
2mm notch in the middle of the top - data-grade only, not Radio Shack
cheapies.
Does anyone have anyexperience with them?
No. I have one (with a Unibus interface), but I've never powered it up.
I've
never seen or heard of one in actual use but I know it's supposed to be
useable on the PDP-8 so I may try to hand it on my -8 if they're any good
(and I can find the right interface card).
You are looking for a TA8E card. Not sure about the handle number.
What kind of cassette tapes do
they use and how hard are they to find and format?
What I have is an industry-standard data cassette - they look almost
exactly like home audio cassettes except for the 2mm notch in the top
middle of the case, and they typically have red or white plastic flaps
rather than bust-out-tabs for write protect - i.e. you can
write-enable a tape by flipping the flap over the hole again.
I suppose it would be somewhat easy to mod an ordinary cassette to
work in these, but I suspect that you might run into a long-term
reliability problem. IIRC, the data cassettes used a thicker mylar
that would stand up to heavy use. I certainly wouldn't bother modding
a C90 - we never used those for PET use back in the day - too thin and
fragile. I'd start with a C20 or C30 and go from there, possibly as
high as a C60.
They aren't block structured as far as I know - more like traditional
magtape. You should be able to boot from them, but I think in terms
of writing, you can only overwrite swaths of tape, not parts of files.
-ethan
6:45 p.m.
A somewhat related question:
What I have is an industry-standard data cassette -
they look almost
exactly like home audio cassettes except for the 2mm notch in the top
middle of the case, and they typically have red or white plastic flaps
rather than bust-out-tabs for write protect - i.e. you can
write-enable a tape by flipping the flap over the hole again.
I just found a data casette system I'm trying to find info on and it
uses the same cassette with the
2mm notch. The casette labeled as a DC-40FL.
The cassettes go into a tape machine made by MFE industries an MFE 2500.
The machine has 6 toggles: local copy, rewind, on line, binary, send,
receive. A
rotary baud rate selector: 110,300, 1200, 2400 and several lights:
online, binary, send, recieve
On the back there are, what appears are two serial port connections a 25
pin male connector labeled
MODEM ans a 25 pin female, labeled TERMINAL.
I assume it can be used as a simple serial line tape machine???
I haven't been able to find any relevant info on the net!
Chhers
Tom
26 Aug
26 Aug
9:20 a.m.
>>>> "tom" == tom ponsford
<tponsford at theriver.com> writes:
tom> A somewhat related question:
> What I have is an industry-standard data cassette
- they look
> almost exactly like home audio cassettes except for the 2mm notch
> in the top middle of the case, and they typically have red or
> white plastic flaps rather than bust-out-tabs for write protect -
> i.e. you can write-enable a tape by flipping the flap over the
> hole again.
>
tom> I just found a data casette system I'm trying to find info on
tom> and it uses the same cassette with the 2mm notch. The casette
tom> labeled as a DC-40FL.
tom> The cassettes go into a tape machine made by MFE industries an
tom> MFE 2500.
tom> The machine has 6 toggles: local copy, rewind, on line, binary,
tom> send, receive. A rotary baud rate selector: 110,300, 1200, 2400
tom> and several lights: online, binary, send, recieve
tom> On the back there are, what appears are two serial port
tom> connections a 25 pin male connector labeled MODEM ans a 25 pin
tom> female, labeled TERMINAL.
Sounds vaguely like the dual cassette decks on the TI Silent 730 -- a
mid 1970s terminal, 300 baud, printed on thermal paper. The ones we
had (in college) mostly were the kind with the cassette decks. The
notion was that they were replacements for the old paper tape on oru
teletypes. You could even control them from the host, via control
codes of one kind or another. I started writing a simple "PIP"
program for that, but I don't think it ever finished -- those things
were clunky enough and slow enough that it just didn't seem to be
worth the effort.
paul
6901
days inactive
6902
days old
6 comments
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participants (5)
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ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
pkoning＠equallogic.com -
rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com -
tponsford＠theriver.com