19 Jul
2006
19 Jul
'06
12:22 p.m.
Out of interest, what's the market for unused, still-sealed magtape (9 track,
2400ft*, 6250bpi) like? I got hold of a few reels the other week and can't
decide whether we should just put them to use them as/when necessary, or use
them to raise funds for other museum projects...
* well, near as I can tell. The scale on the reel goes from zero to 2000 in
increments of 400 and is some way over the 2000 mark; I'm assuming it's feet!
(did anyone ever sell magtape > 2000ft that *wasn't* 2400ft in length?)
thanks
Jules
19 Jul
19 Jul
3:09 p.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
* well, near as I can tell. The scale on the reel goes from zero to
2000 in increments of 400 and is some way over the 2000 mark; I'm
assuming it's feet! (did anyone ever sell magtape > 2000ft that
*wasn't* 2400ft in length?)
thanks
3600' reels. but I don't recall a scale that actually showed the amount
of tape on
any of the reels like you describe. can you describe them more? Scotch
brand?
black label type?
If they are so old that they predate that, then their reliability would
be questionable
for anything but transfers off a system. You'd want to back them up
immediately
from that media if possible, if the New old Stock was
too old itself.
at least you would not have to worry about the possible printthru
problems you
can have with really old 1/2" tape and the like where data is corrupted
by magnetic
leakage between layers of tape due to age on the shelf w/o being unreeled
from time to time.
Jim
5:09 p.m.
jim stephens wrote:
Jules Richardson wrote:
They're branded as Inmac Plus, then just 'lifetime computer tape, 6250bpi'. No
other details on the front other than the scale on the clear window of the shell.
On the back there's a label: "A4L0J0814A2 43" (which doesn't mean
anything
according to google, at least). By my estimate the length's actually 2200
feet, assuming that the scale does indeed work in feet!
* well, near as I can tell. The scale on the reel goes from zero to
2000 in increments of 400 and is some way over the 2000 mark; I'm
assuming it's feet! (did anyone ever sell magtape > 2000ft that
*wasn't* 2400ft in length?)
thanks
3600' reels. but I don't recall a scale that actually showed the amount
of tape on any of the reels like you describe. can you describe them more? Scotch
brand? If they are so old that they predate that
These were used with a Sun 3E VME crate [1], so would have dated from anywhere
between the mid-80's and the machine's retirement (early 90's). The
drive's a
standard enough 9 track front-loading vacuum unit.
[1] Actually a pretty cool box. Cabinet with dual VME racks - the front one
houses the standard CPU and related boards, whilst the back one is full of
image processing hardware. PSUs live in the middle, with the hard drives
(one's SMD I believe, the other's SCSI) at the top. It was made by
ContextVision (who are still trading), and owned by Shell - some of the used
tapes with it hint that it was used for analysing seismic image data from
oilfields. I grabbed the tapes + tape drive from the site the other week, but
the machine and its three graphical displays are too big and heavy to shift in
my car for the moment!
then their reliability would be questionable
for anything but transfers off a system. You'd want to back them up
immediately from that media if possible, if the New old Stock was too old
itself.
I think I picked up about 15 of the sealed ones - if there is any kind of
useful resale market for them then I can always open one and do some
read-write testing; it's just not worth the time at this stage if they only go
for a buck each or something anyway! :)
cheers
Jules
4:21 p.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
jim stephens wrote:
They're branded as Inmac Plus,
Inmac was a supply distributor that sold high end stuff thru phone and
direct
catalog marketing. They sold tapes, printer ribbons, all the usual
crap. i dont
know if they still exist as inmac, or were bought out, but I have not
seen the
name for a long time, so I suspect they merged into something else and
dropped
the name.
IIRC it may be one of the distributors from around here in Orange county,
as a friend used to buy from them a lot, even though they were over priced.
We bought Scotch brand tapes from a distributor, whereas Inmac this
and Inmac that had private labeling. I never would pay for such crap
then or now.
made as much sense as people who think designer jeans mean something.
to me (using the jeans example) whether I split the seams while wearing
them, or they wear out too soon is a better measure than who's name is
on the butt.
However they were quality stuff.
Also, I doubt that the tape was anything but 2400'. I dont think you could
buy much of anything but 600, 1200, 2400, and 3600' tapes, unless you
spooled your own. Ibm shops had what were called DTR's which had
100 to 200' of tape on them with patches, and I have a few that were not
DTR spooled, but those were rare.
Your box sounds like a nice one. A beast but nice if you have room
to play with it.
Jim
5:34 p.m.
jim stephens wrote:
to me (using the jeans example) whether I split the
seams while wearing
them, or they wear out too soon is a better measure than who's name is
on the butt.
absolutely.
Also, I doubt that the tape was anything but
2400'.
Same here, based on googling around. Makes me wonder if the manufacturing
process winds the reel a bit tighter than a drive will or something, so once
it's had a run through a drive it'll show as closer to 2400ft.
Your box sounds like a nice one. A beast but nice if
you have room
to play with it.
Luckily it's got all the OS tapes, drivers for the image processing hardware
etc. and seems to accept various standards of video as input - just a question
of whether the tapes (those are all QIC 150MB ones) are still good. If they
are though it could make an interesting museum addition as it could actually
do something visual.
My experience of reading old QIC media has been on the whole pretty good, so
I'm pretty hopeful.
cheers
Jules
4:32 p.m.
On 7/20/2006 at 12:09 AM Jules Richardson wrote:
I think I picked up about 15 of the sealed ones - if
there is any kind of
useful resale market for them then I can always open one and do some
read-write testing; it's just not worth the time at this stage if they
only go for a buck each or something anyway! :)
They're not worth much in today's market. Perhaps later when they get to
be scarce.. NOS tapes seem to be going for less than the shipping cost.
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