On 2 Nov, 2006, at 18:00, cctech-request at classiccmp.org wrote: An ICT 1301 can support up to eight half inch tape decks. I actually have 13 decks in total, though currently I only have three of them running. Only one of them can both read and write, though that is the next thing on the list to be sorted out. We need to write an 'All Ones' tape to re- calibrate the read amplifiers (ten per deck). Then hopefully we will not be relying on the error correction circuitry to correct the single bit errors we are currently getting almost all the time. Maybe next year I could get six or seven decks working but our priority is to read the libraries of software recorded on the very old tapes. Surprisingly this seems to be possible, we have already read some data off a tape written 30 years ago or more. At only 300 frames per inch the bits are so much bigger they are less likely to degrade (I hope). There is an engineer's facility to 'Read All Tracks' which we will use to read the entire tape, hopefully without stopping and send all 40MB to a parallel port we are building with a built in FIFO. The data will then hopefully be captured onto a modern machine. We will repeat this two or three times on different decks and then analyse the data to produce the original (up to 10MB of data per reel). There may be some digits we will not be sure of due to multiple bit failures in a single frame, but we will at least know which ones they are. The regular read hardware just says which blocks have one of more frames with multi bit failures. I am hoping to extend the computer room, get both my 1301s assembled and have all 13 decks in a row. There's no plans yet to get the second 1301 running but I want to get it at least bolted together whilst there is a glimmer of a memory in my head as to how to do it. I have a quite a few years to go before senility (I hope), but it is already 30 years since I took that beast apart and the ink on the labels I carefully applied has now faded away to almost nothing. There will be room for a small exhibition of other stuff, props used in the making of the 'Darling Buds of May', some old Apple computers, ][, ][e, ///, Lisa and some older Macs, plus a mechanical calculator, a wind up gramaphone, a 19th century pounds shillings and pence till made by NCR, an Eddison drum (grooves not magnetic) dictating machine and player, and maybe some stuff which is currently in my office, an HP7475 plotter, a big old HP DraftMaster MX+ plotter and various other items I have not had the heart to throw in the skip over the years. Oh and my UK101 computer maybe. It'll only be open one day a year to the general public when we hold a classic car show at the farm.