Tony Duell wrote: Actually, if the drive wheel is gooey enough, it will smear goo onto the tape itself and make the cartridge almost impossible to clean. There's a significant problem with the original DC100 tapes as used in the HP-85, HP 9825, etc. The oxide tends to flake off the backing and this not only destroys the data (usually it's the catalog at the beginning of the tape, since most tapes are stored in the rewound condition), but also the now clear tape confuses the EOT photodetectors. With repeated attempts to read the catalog and/or rewind the tape eventually you will unspool the cartridge. Not fatal, but a pretty good indication that the tape is unusable. The procedure I've used on several of the HP tape drives involves: 1) Removing the drive assembly from the computer 2) Carefully removing the motor and capstan assembly from the housing 3) Scraping the leftover goo from the aluminum hub 4) Shrinking three layers of heat-shrink tubing over the bare hub 5) Trimming the excess tubing, and 6) Carefully reassembling the mechanism and reinstalling it. I've done this procedure on about ten drives, and it now takes me about 30 to 45 minutes, start to finish (but don't ask how long the *first* one took me!). Stan

At 09:10 PM 6/9/99 +0100, you wrote: No it can transfer from the "puck" to the tape then when the tape winds up on a spool it glues the layers together. Then when the drive tries to unwind it breaks the tape. A lot depends on how bad the drive wheel gets. I've seen some so bad that the "rubber" would run off of them like wet paint! I've also seen a lot of tapes with patchs of media gone from them. I think that may be caused by the gooy rubber too. It is normally possible to take the cartridges to bits and clean But if it breaks the tape you're screwed! Same thing if it pulls the media off the tape. The base material is clear and the sensor sees the clear spot and thinks that it's reached the end of the tape and it gives you a file-not-found error. I've fixed a lot of tapes that have had the internal drive belt break. It's a huge pain! Yeap. I have but it's pretty lengthy so contact me privately. I need to do the ones in my 9100 so I could use some advice too. Joe

Eek! You're right. I was in too big a hurry when I read the message. The GPIO is a 16 bit parallel interface. Joe At 09:07 PM 6/9/99 +0100, you wrote: