"Fred N. van Kempen" <Fred.van.Kempen(a)microwalt.nl> writes about the HP 7980S 9-track tape drive: Yes. It's basically the same as the 88780. I've got the user and service manuals somewhere. You can only tell it what density to use when writing. It autodetects for reading, and AFAIK there is no way to override that.

Good day, *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 02-Oct-02 at 02:50 Fred N. van Kempen wrote: I had an 88170 at one time. They're pretty much the same as the 7980. It will automatically sense the density of the tape you load, and will lock itself to said density, and it should certainly be able to handle all three of the standards (800, 1600, 6250). Bear in mind that you'll need some fairly specialized (and expensive -- in the $300 region) software if you want to use that drive on any sort of PC. Good hunting. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy, Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com ARS KC7GR (Formerly WD6EOS) since 12-77 -- kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com "I'll get a life when someone demonstrates that it would be superior to what I have now..." (Taki Kogoma, aka Gym Z. Quirk)