"Daniel A. Seagraves" <dseagrav(a)bsdserver.tek-star.net> writes: Fairly late-model HP 1000, replaced by the A990 in 1991 I think. I don't know that much about them but think they are descended from the HP 2100 and 21MX processors used in earlier 1000s (and would like to find out more, so corrections are invited). What are the first four digits of the serial number? That will give you some idea of its age; first two digits are probably year less 1960, next two digits are week-of-year. It is a 1600 BPI 9-track drive. Is yours in a lo-boy cabinet with the supply and takeup hubs side-by-side, or in the tall cabinet with supply mounted above takeup? Mine is a lo-boy but I have used both. Sounds like HP-IB all right. Note that not all 7970s are. As Tony said, there should be a diagram that shows the tape path. Pop the lever in the center of the supply hub up, and slide your tape on. Leave the lever up for now; you will be pulling tape off the supply reel and if the hub were engaged you would have to turn it too. Pull the tape off the supply reel, threading it around the stationary post, then the tension arm, then the heads (lift the cover over the read/write head to thread the tape through), then the other tension arm, then the other stationary post, then onto the takeup reel. Hold the tape against the takeup reel -- stick your finger through the little hole -- and make a turn or two of the takeup reel to get the tape firmly held on the reel. Push the lever on the supply hub down to engage the supply reel. Now you can push LOAD to get the tape drive to scan for the load point. If it just keeps going and going then there is a problem with the light/sensor assembly. ONLINE puts the drive on-line. Won't work unless the tape is loaded. RESET is "stop what you're doing and take the drive offline". REWIND is "rewind to load point or 'til the tension arms lose tension because the tape came loose from the takeup reel". 0, 1, 2, 3, OFF switch the drive's unit number; OFF is effectively offline. Note that unit number may not have an obvious relation to the system's device name or number. I don't know much about RTE (the OS on the 1000s) but under MPE on classic 3000s it was a component of either the DRT number or the unit number, which were in turn referenced by the logical device number. Hope this helps, if you have more questions feel free to ask. -Frank McConnell