21 Jul
2010
21 Jul
'10
6:44 a.m.
Still the question remains: how best to read cartridge
tapes with
faulty belts and sticky drive capstans?
Even 20 years ago, it was de rigueur to disassemble the cartridge
and replace worn or stretched or deformed rubber parts with new
or at least better components from a "donor cartridge".
When the decay had left little rubber fragments in the path you had
to take the cart apart to remove/clean them before reading anyway.
Twenty years ago, only the worst (due to extreme ozone exposure or
physical wear) carts needed this. Today the issue is that all the
donor cartridges may be 20 or 30 years old too.
Tim.
21 Jul
21 Jul
8:58 a.m.
Hi
Although, one can create a belt that will work or find a cartridge
that has good bearings. Eventually you'll need to do something
else. It might be worth making a transport that one can spool
the tapes onto and read them that way for one last time.
Then move the data to a more upto date storage.
Dwight
From: tshoppa at wmata.com
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 06:44:35 -0400
Subject: Re: recovering cartridge tapes (was: Tek fiches found!
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Still the question remains: how best to read
cartridge tapes with
faulty belts and sticky drive capstans?
Even 20 years ago, it was de rigueur to disassemble the cartridge
and replace worn or stretched or deformed rubber parts with new
or at least better components from a "donor cartridge".
When the decay had left little rubber fragments in the path you had
to take the cart apart to remove/clean them before reading anyway.
Twenty years ago, only the worst (due to extreme ozone exposure or
physical wear) carts needed this. Today the issue is that all the
donor cartridges may be 20 or 30 years old too.
Tim. 
10:45 a.m.
On 21 Jul 2010 at 5:58, dwight elvey wrote:
Although, one can create a belt that will work or
find a cartridge
that has good bearings. Eventually you'll need to do something
else. It might be worth making a transport that one can spool
the tapes onto and read them that way for one last time.
"One last time" is the part that bothers me. Almost all cartridge DC-
style tapes are recorded "serpentine" style--i.e. start in one
direction, shift the head, reverse, etc...
So the spooling scheme had better work. I'm not aware of any 32-
channel (for example) QIC heads.
I suppose one could get a batch of heads and mount them, with each
head offset by an appropriate amount.
I like the idea of vacuum-column drives with air/vacuum capstans, but
the mechanicals are going to be nasty to figure out from off-the-
shelf parts.
--Chuck
4:54 p.m.
New subject: recovering cartridge tapes (was: Tek fiches found!)
In article <4C46A57E.15148.5E8BCB at cclist.sydex.com>,
"Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> writes:
[...] Almost all cartridge DC-
style tapes are recorded "serpentine" style--i.e. start in one
direction, shift the head, reverse, etc...
This is news to me. Every cartridge tape I've ever used recorded data
to the end and then stopped. I don't recall seeing any mechanism for
shifting the tape head in HP264x terminals with DC100 cartridges nor
in Tektronix 4051 terminals with DC300 cartridges.
So the spooling scheme had better work. I'm not
aware of any 32-
channel (for example) QIC heads.
QIC tapes are something different from DC300 and DC100 tapes.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
5:30 p.m.
New subject: recovering cartridge tapes (was: Tek fiches found!)
On 21 Jul 2010 at 14:54, Richard wrote:
QIC tapes are something different from DC300 and DC100
tapes.
Really? DC300 = quarter-inch tape, 300 feet, written by lots of
"QIC" 4 and 9 track drives in serpentine fashion, including the IBM
6157. My old 3M catalog lists it as a quarter-inch tape. I've got
one here; fits in a standard-sized QIC drive and works like any other
QIC cart (e.g. DC600A).
Maybe we're caught in a Python sketch:
"Cole Porter ... who wrote `Kiss Me Kate'?"
"No, alas not, sir ... this was Cole Porter who wrote `Anything
Goes'".
--Chuck
6:16 p.m.
New subject: recovering cartridge tapes (was: Tek fiches found!)
In article <4C47048A.9233.1D1D144 at cclist.sydex.com>,
"Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> writes:
On 21 Jul 2010 at 14:54, Richard wrote:
DC600 != DC300 != DC100
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
QIC tapes are something different from DC300 and
DC100 tapes.
Really? DC300 = quarter-inch tape, 300 feet, written by lots of
"QIC" 4 and 9 track drives in serpentine fashion, including the IBM
6157. My old 3M catalog lists it as a quarter-inch tape. I've got
one here; fits in a standard-sized QIC drive and works like any other
QIC cart (e.g. DC600A).
22 Jul
22 Jul
10:29 a.m.
New subject: recovering cartridge tapes (was: Tek fiches found!)
In article <4C471157.25856.203D1FC at cclist.sydex.com>,
"Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> writes:
On 21 Jul 2010 at 16:16, Richard wrote:
Your discussion seems to relate to DC600 mechanisms, not to the DC100
or DC500 mechanisms that I have seen in my equipment.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
DC600 != DC300 != DC100
So what's your point? That there are no QIC11 DC300s?
1:03 p.m.
New subject: recovering cartridge tapes (was: Tek fiches found!)
On 22 Jul 2010 at 8:29, Richard wrote:
Your discussion seems to relate to DC600 mechanisms,
not to the DC100
or DC500 mechanisms that I have seen in my equipment.
DC500? That's one I've never run across.
Could be. The IBM 5100 is the first system I'm aware of that used a
DC300 tape. It wasn't serpentine and was hugely wasteful of the
tape, recording one of two tracks or the other, but not both at the
same time. FWIW, a friend with a 5100 reports that a DC600A tape
works well in his 5100 and gets more capacity.
Later DC300 drives were serpentine, for example, the early tape
drives for the PS/2 series took DC300XLP tapes. I think this was
also the case for the 6157 drive for the RT as well.
How close in construction are the DC100 and the DC1000 minicartridge?
--Chuck
3:56 p.m.
New subject: recovering cartridge tapes (was: Tek fiches found!)
In article <4C481784.32520.483D0A at cclist.sydex.com>,
"Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> writes:
On 22 Jul 2010 at 8:29, Richard wrote:
Typo. I meant DC300.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
Your discussion seems to relate to DC600
mechanisms, not to the DC100
or DC500 mechanisms that I have seen in my equipment.
DC500? That's one I've never run across. 
1:44 p.m.
New subject: recovering cartridge tapes (was: Tek fiches found!)
QIC tapes are something different from DC300 and DC100
tapes.
Really? DC300 = quarter-inch tape, 300 feet, written by lots of
"QIC" 4 and 9 track drives in serpentine fashion, including the IBM
6157. My old 3M catalog lists it as a quarter-inch tape. I've got
one here; fits in a standard-sized QIC drive and works like any other
QIC cart (e.g. DC600A).
1:38 p.m.
New subject: recovering cartridge tapes (was: Tek fiches found!)
In article <4C46A57E.15148.5E8BCB at cclist.sydex.com>,
"Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> writes:
Many QIC types (including DC300s) used serpentine recording. I don't
think the smalelr tapes used, for example, in the HP terminals, HP 98x5,
HP80-seires, DEC TU58, etc did. But later QIC drives using similar tapes
probably did use serpentine recording.
[...] Almost all cartridge DC-
style tapes are recorded "serpentine" style--i.e. start in one
direction, shift the head, reverse, etc...
This is news to me. Every cartridge tape I've ever used recorded data
to the end and then stopped. I don't recall seeing any mechanism for shifting the tape head in HP264x terminals with DC100
cartridges nor
in Tektronix 4051 terminals with DC300 cartridges.
Eh? DC300 tapes were used for QIC11, etc recording .And it was serpentine.
-tony
So the spooling scheme had better work. I'm
not aware of any 32-
channel (for example) QIC heads.
QIC tapes are something different from DC300 and DC100 tapes.
5148
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5149
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