I can't speak for the 7970, but I can tell you that Pertec formatted connections are usually a pair of 50-pin (25 to each side) PC edge paddles. I've seen a few (very few!) devices, specifically an old Unibus tape controller, where one connection was a Berg 50-pin header and the other was an edge paddle. From your description, it sounds as though the drive may not have its own formatter built in, outside of the HPIB interface section. I could, however, be mistaken (read: I'd need to see the drive). -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Sysop, The Dragon's Cave BBS (Fidonet 1:343/272) (Hamateur: WD6EOS) (E-mail: kyrrin2(a)wizards.net) http://www.wizards.net/technoid "Our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our own human terms. It cannot, in any way, define any of them..."