On Apr 4, 2010, at 10:44 PM, Teo Zenios wrote: shipping "IMATION MAGNUS 46165 QIC 1000- 1.2 GB-B NEW" and put in a bid thinking nobody uses this stuff anymore. With 30 minutes currently left it has hit $117.50 and all the bids are users with 2000+ feedback. So are these things that rare, or do people snag it up to keep the prices expensive for corporate users who need tapes? I can't really see a company needing new tapes (1.2GB) these days, drives maybe to restore files but not new tapes. Lots and lots and LOTS of companies use really ancient PC equipment. I see quite a few places right around where I live with tape drives like that in their PCs. Remember, very few companies fall under the "Fortune 500" category, and most of them have very little interest in the idea of upgrading for the sake of upgrading. I have a consulting client (small retail store) who using 400MB QIC-80 (Travan TR-1) tapes to back up their accounting and inventory database. I could move them to an SDLT-600 ($400 used, tapes are $100/ea), but why? More than a dozen FULL backups of their accounting and inventory databases will fit on ONE of those tapes. When they can no longer find QIC-80 tapes, I'll move them to a DLT-7000 ($75 will get them one used drive and three more for spares, tapes are $4/ea). DLT-IV media will be easy to find for years to come, and I have hundreds of them in stock. For these QIC-1000 tapes...I'm betting they're suppliers who are getting lots of orders for those types of tapes from those types of companies, and are having trouble filling the orders. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

My goodness... I probably have 40-50 of these sitting in storage, although only a few are unused. Do folks really use QIC-1000 drives anymore?

Well, some people are buying 8" and 5.25" floppies, so why no QIC-1000 tapes?

I would also suspect that the number of 'classic computers' run by enthusiasts that use 8" (and even more so 5.25") flopplies vastly exceeds the number that use QIC1000 tapes.

Maybe, but perhaps not "vastly" at this late date and age. Many commercial customers probably maintain large libraries of tapes for magazine-feed tape drives. Show the average guy on the street a 5.25" drive and he's likely to think it's a new type of DVD unit. The number of classic computer enthusiasts is a very small portion of the overall computer-using community.