17 May
2015
17 May
'15
8:18 a.m.
This just popped up today:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/LOT-OF-54-USED-VINTAGE-DEC-DIGITAL-COMPACTAPE-TK50-D
ATA-TAPE-CARTRIDGES-SOFTWARE-/221774909736?
It is a bit expensive in my view and shipping to the UK is too much, but I
thought there *might* be some old versions of DEC software on some of those
tapes. I thought of asking about the DEC software myself, but as I know I
wouldn't bid it wouldn't be right for me to ask. Anyone in the USA
interested enough to find out what historical DEC software there might be
and recover the tapes (if possible)?
Regards
Rob
17 May
17 May
2:42 p.m.
On May 17, 2015, at 05:18, Robert Jarratt
<robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com> wrote:
This just popped up today:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/LOT-OF-54-USED-VINTAGE-DEC-DIGITAL-COMPACTAPE-TK50-D
ATA-TAPE-CARTRIDGES-SOFTWARE-/221774909736?
Hmm, mystery media to be archived is one of my weak spots... I wonder whether A) any of
this stuff might be usable on my 11/730 (which presumably has VMS 5.3 installed, though I
haven't dealt with the console boot tape issue yet to bring it up), and B) whether a
TK50 drive can be interfaced to my 11/730 under VMS 5.3. Its card cage is already full,
though I suppose I could temporarily remove either the ethernet or 1/2" tape drive
cards. Can anybody educate me on this subject?
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
2:45 p.m.
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
From: Mark J. Blair
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2015 8:42 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: 54 TK50 tapes on eBay
On May 17, 2015, at 05:18, Robert Jarratt
<robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com>
wrote:
This just popped up today:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/LOT-OF-54-USED-VINTAGE-DEC-DIGITAL-COMPACTAPE-TK50-D
ATA-TAPE-CARTRIDGES-SOFTWARE-/221774909736?
Hmm, mystery media to be archived is one of my weak spots... I wonder
whether A) any of this stuff might be usable on my 11/730 (which presumably
has VMS 5.3 installed, though I haven't dealt with the console boot tape
issue yet to bring it up), and B) whether a TK50 drive can be interfaced to
my 11/730 under VMS 5.3. Its card cage is already full, though I suppose I
could temporarily remove either the ethernet or 1/2" tape drive cards. Can
anybody educate me on this subject?
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
----
You would need the TUK-50 interface (quad) module to hook the TK50
to a UNIBUS-based system.
The TQK-50 interface for TK50 to QBUS is common - TUK-50 is not ...
- Henk, PA8PDP
2:49 p.m.
On May 17, 2015, at 11:45, Henk Gooijen
<henk.gooijen at hotmail.com> wrote:
You would need the TUK-50 interface (quad) module to hook the TK50
to a UNIBUS-based system.
The TQK-50 interface for TK50 to QBUS is common - TUK-50 is not ...
- Henk, PA8PDP
Thanks! I'll add some eBay searches. ;)
If I had one, would VMS 5.3 know what to do with it, though?
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
2:52 p.m.
On May 17, 2015, at 11:49, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at
nf6x.net> wrote:
Thanks! I'll add some eBay searches. ;)
Oooh, found one already! I'd like to learn more before I click "buy",
though.
Sigh, another project... :)
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
3:17 p.m.
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
From: Mark J. Blair
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2015 8:52 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: 54 TK50 tapes on eBay
On May 17, 2015, at 11:49, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at
nf6x.net> wrote:
Thanks! I'll add some eBay searches. ;)
Oooh, found one already! I'd like to learn more before I click "buy",
though.
Sigh, another project... :)
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
-----
I am not going to look, I might be tempted ...
If it sells for less than $50, I'd say "go for it". The TUK-50
is not that often on sale. With this module you can connect
the TK50 to any UNIBUS system.
You need some flat cable from the module to the TK50,
but it is a "straight" cable IIRC. If needed, I can check.
My 11/44 has a TK50 (thus a TUK-50 module installed).
- Henk, PA8PDP
3:29 p.m.
On May 17, 2015, at 12:17, Henk Gooijen
<henk.gooijen at hotmail.com> wrote:
----- I am not going to look, I might be tempted ...
If it sells for less than $50, I'd say "go for it". The TUK-50
is not that often on sale. With this module you can connect
the TK50 to any UNIBUS system.
You need some flat cable from the module to the TK50,
but it is a "straight" cable IIRC. If needed, I can check.
My 11/44 has a TK50 (thus a TUK-50 module installed).
Well, $55 with free shipping is close enough! I bought the card, which I could always use
in my 11/44 project, too.
Now I'm trying to learn about the drives. I understand the TUK50 board has a 26ish-pin
header for the drive cable. I see an ugly-looking TK50D external drive on eBay, but it
appears to have a 50-pin D connector. There are also some TK50Z SCSI (?) external drives
listed, which I presume are not applicable. Maybe I'd need to get an internal drive
and cobble together a power source.
On May 17, 2015, at 12:24, Henk Gooijen
<henk.gooijen at hotmail.com> wrote:
I could not resist ... a quick search did not find a TUK-50 ...
Note that the M7546 is for QBUS. Saw a few of those, ranging
from some $25 (acceptable) to $799.99 (way insane crazy!)
That's because I just bought the only M7547 listed! ;)
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
3:40 p.m.
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
From: Mark J. Blair
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2015 9:29 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: 54 TK50 tapes on eBay
Well, $55 with free shipping is close enough! I bought the card, which I
could always use in my 11/44 project, too.
Now I'm trying to learn about the drives. I understand the TUK50 board has a
26ish-pin header for the drive cable. I see an ugly-looking TK50D external
drive on eBay, but it appears to have a 50-pin D connector. There are also
some TK50Z SCSI (?) external drives listed, which I presume are not
applicable. Maybe I'd need to get an internal drive and cobble together a
power source.
On May 17, 2015, at 12:24, Henk Gooijen
<henk.gooijen at hotmail.com> wrote:
I could not resist ... a quick search did not find a TUK-50 ...
Note that the M7546 is for QBUS. Saw a few of those, ranging
from some $25 (acceptable) to $799.99 (way insane crazy!)
That's because I just bought the only M7547 listed! ;)
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
-----
Congrats, I cannot remember sales below $50 for a TUK-50 module.
This is from (old) memory cells, so I could be wrong ...
AFAIK, the external box-based drives (whether the box contained a
TK50, TK70, or RD5x) always used a 50-pin 3-row D shell connector.
When the TK50 is inside the cabinet it is a smaller cable - 26 pin
could be it. As said, I can check next Saturday, but other readers
sure can answer this one too.
With the TK50 in the cabinet you need a PSU, the external TK50D
would be a good source. The PSU is nothing special though ...
TK50Z drives are OK with a DECstation or VAXstation (?) or XXXserver,
their interface is indeed SCSI. Not 100% sure, I'd need to RTFM a bit.
- Henk, PA8PDP
3:41 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Mark J.
Blair
Sent: 17 May 2015 20:29
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: 54 TK50 tapes on eBay
could
On May 17, 2015, at 12:17, Henk Gooijen
<henk.gooijen at hotmail.com>
wrote:
----- I am not going to look, I might be tempted ...
If it sells for less than $50, I'd say "go for it". The TUK-50 is not
that often on sale. With this module you can connect the TK50 to any
UNIBUS system.
You need some flat cable from the module to the TK50, but it is a
"straight" cable IIRC. If needed, I can check.
My 11/44 has a TK50 (thus a TUK-50 module installed).
Well, $55 with free shipping is close enough! I bought the card, which I always use in my 11/44 project, too.
Now I'm trying to learn about the drives. I understand the TUK50 board has
a
26ish-pin header for the drive cable. I see an
ugly-looking TK50D external
drive
on eBay, but it appears to have a 50-pin D connector.
There are also some
TK50Z SCSI (?) external drives listed, which I presume are not applicable.
Maybe I'd need to get an internal drive and cobble together a power
source.
On May 17, 2015, at 12:24, Henk Gooijen
<henk.gooijen at hotmail.com>
wrote:
I could not resist ... a quick search did not
find a TUK-50 ...
Note that the M7546 is for QBUS. Saw a few of those, ranging from
some $25 (acceptable) to $799.99 (way insane crazy!)
That's because I just bought the only M7547 listed! ;)
3:50 p.m.
On May 17, 2015, at 12:41, Robert Jarratt
<robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com> wrote:
Glad you got the board and I hope you get a decent drive to read the tapes
with. You could always put together a Qbus system just to read the tapes
(which could then be the much better TK70, or even some of the later
drives), but if you have a 730 and can read it there that would be great. I
used to use a 730 many years ago, would be great to see one again.
I think I'll probably choose a clean-looking internal drive over one of the
dirty-looking external ones I see listed. I'd imagine that this drive would get
temporarily installed in various systems in my pile rather than being dedicated to one of
them.
Don't forget, if you get those tapes, to let us know what old DEC software
is on there. I would like to find the DECnet kit for MicroVMS (although I
have a way to get DECnet working on MicroVMS anyway, it would still be nice
to have the proper kit).
Will do! And I'll experiment with the least rare-looking ones first, of course. Still
haven't decided whether to buy that particular box of tapes or not.
I am sure you are aware, but just in case, be careful
with these tapes as I
suspect they are now at the point of being ROMs (Read Once at Most), and
they can gum up the drive quite badly, make sure you clean the heads after
running each tape through, for anything really critical.
Ah, yes... another benefit of an internal drive sitting naked on the table would be easier
access to the heads for cleaning. Maybe I should build that tape/disk baking oven I've
been thinking about before trying any old tapes out?
Of course, I still need to deal with my 730's console boot tape issues first. I
haven't managed to boot up the system yet, so my next step will be to try splicing in
tu58em in place of the tape drive.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
3:54 p.m.
On May 17, 2015, at 12:50, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at
nf6x.net> wrote:
> On May 17, 2015, at 12:41, Robert Jarratt <robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com>
wrote:
>
> Glad you got the board and I hope you get a decent drive to read the tapes
> with. You could always put together a Qbus system just to read the tapes
> (which could then be the much better TK70, or even some of the later
> drives), but if you have a 730 and can read it there that would be great. I
> used to use a 730 many years ago, would be great to see one again.
Ah, this brings up another question: Would I be able to dump VMS TK50 tapes to image files
somehow under RT11? Once I have my PDP-11/03 working reliably with a SCSI card and SCSI2SD
or something similar, maybe that would be a more convenient system for imaging the tapes,
assuming RT11 can do what's necessary.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
4:18 p.m.
On 2015-05-17 21:54, Mark J. Blair wrote:
Sure. Reading the tape is simple. And then you have the tape blocks. The
question is what you do with them from there...
You might want to try and find some tool that creates some tape image.
Under RSX you'd normally use TPC, which creates file images of the tape,
which the same tool can then recreate the tapes from. The format would
be familiar to anyone who dealt with TPC-format tapes under Unix. ;-)
Johnny
On May 17, 2015, at 12:50, Mark J. Blair <nf6x
at nf6x.net> wrote:
> On May 17, 2015, at 12:41, Robert Jarratt <robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com>
wrote:
>
> Glad you got the board and I hope you get a decent drive to read the tapes
> with. You could always put together a Qbus system just to read the tapes
> (which could then be the much better TK70, or even some of the later
> drives), but if you have a 730 and can read it there that would be great. I
> used to use a 730 many years ago, would be great to see one again.
Ah, this brings up another question: Would I be able to dump VMS TK50 tapes to image
files somehow under RT11? Once I have my PDP-11/03 working reliably with a SCSI card and
SCSI2SD or something similar, maybe that would be a more convenient system for imaging the
tapes, assuming RT11 can do what's necessary.
4:16 p.m.
On 2015-05-17 21:50, Mark J. Blair wrote:
The external drive is just the internal drive in a box with a PSU.
The drive itself sits on the same sled you see in all the micro machines.
The TK50 normally do not gum up. There are two problems with them, and
those problems have been around since day 1.
The first one is that the heads get dirty. Cleaning with isopropanol or
similar with a lint-free pad solves that just fine.
The second problem is that the tape pickup gets unhinged. Remove the
covers and then you can fix that easily.
The TK50 also is horrible in that you just have one button, that is
supposed to do several functions, meaning it can get confused and you
won't be able to get the tape out. Power cycle for that one.
Johnny
On May 17, 2015, at 12:41, Robert Jarratt
<robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com> wrote:
Glad you got the board and I hope you get a decent drive to read the tapes
with. You could always put together a Qbus system just to read the tapes
(which could then be the much better TK70, or even some of the later
drives), but if you have a 730 and can read it there that would be great. I
used to use a 730 many years ago, would be great to see one again.
I think I'll probably choose a clean-looking internal drive over one of the
dirty-looking external ones I see listed. I'd imagine that this drive would get
temporarily installed in various systems in my pile rather than being dedicated to one of
them. I am sure you
are aware, but just in case, be careful with these tapes as I
suspect they are now at the point of being ROMs (Read Once at Most), and
they can gum up the drive quite badly, make sure you clean the heads after
running each tape through, for anything really critical.
Ah, yes... another benefit of an internal drive sitting naked on the table would be
easier access to the heads for cleaning. Maybe I should build that tape/disk baking oven
I've been thinking about before trying any old tapes out?
Of course, I still need to deal with my 730's console boot tape issues first. I
haven't managed to boot up the system yet, so my next step will be to try splicing in
tu58em in place of the tape drive.
3:24 p.m.
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
From: Mark J. Blair
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2015 8:52 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: 54 TK50 tapes on eBay
On May 17, 2015, at 11:49, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at
nf6x.net> wrote:
Thanks! I'll add some eBay searches. ;)
Oooh, found one already! I'd like to learn more before I click "buy",
though.
Sigh, another project... :)
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
-----
I could not resist ... a quick search did not find a TUK-50 ...
Note that the M7546 is for QBUS. Saw a few of those, ranging
from some $25 (acceptable) to $799.99 (way insane
crazy!)
3:35 p.m.
On May 17, 2015, at 12:24, Henk Gooijen
<henk.gooijen at hotmail.com> wrote:
I could not resist ... a quick search did not find a TUK-50 ...
Note that the M7546 is for QBUS. Saw a few of those, ranging
from some $25 (acceptable) to $799.99 (way insane crazy!)
Aw, heck, $25 for a TQK50 sounds cheap. Might as well get one for my 11/03! :)
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
4:02 p.m.
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
From: Mark J. Blair
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2015 9:35 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: 54 TK50 tapes on eBay
On May 17, 2015, at 12:24, Henk Gooijen
<henk.gooijen at hotmail.com> wrote:
I could not resist ... a quick search did not find a TUK-50 ...
Note that the M7546 is for QBUS. Saw a few of those, ranging
from some $25 (acceptable) to $799.99 (way insane crazy!)
Aw, heck, $25 for a TQK50 sounds cheap. Might as well get one for my 11/03!
:)
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
-----
For your 11/03 you could also go for a TK70 + TQK70.
The TK70 is better than the TK50 (heard/read from other chaps),
and with the TK70 you can *read* TK50 tapes (not write though).
There is no UNIBUS interface for the TK70 (AFAIK).
- Henk, PA8PDP
4:05 p.m.
On May 17, 2015, at 13:02, Henk Gooijen
<henk.gooijen at hotmail.com> wrote:
For your 11/03 you could also go for a TK70 + TQK70.
The TK70 is better than the TK50 (heard/read from other chaps),
and with the TK70 you can *read* TK50 tapes (not write though).
There is no UNIBUS interface for the TK70 (AFAIK).
I've put an offer on a TK50AA internal drive, but I see that somebody else has already
bought the big box of TK50 tapes. I snooze, I lose! Well, I kind of wanted to experiment
with an old TK50 drive anyway, so I'll look for some other tape(s) to play with.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
3:11 p.m.
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
From: Mark J. Blair
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2015 8:49 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: 54 TK50 tapes on eBay
On May 17, 2015, at 11:45, Henk Gooijen
<henk.gooijen at hotmail.com> wrote:
You would need the TUK-50 interface (quad) module to hook the TK50
to a UNIBUS-based system.
The TQK-50 interface for TK50 to QBUS is common - TUK-50 is not ...
- Henk, PA8PDP
Thanks! I'll add some eBay searches. ;)
If I had one, would VMS 5.3 know what to do with it, though?
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
-----
That would be mentioned in the Release Notes :-)
Sorry, no knowledge about VMSW (yet).
- Henk, PA8PDP
4:09 p.m.
On 2015-05-17 20:49, Mark J. Blair wrote:
Yes, the TUK-50 looks like any other TMSCP controller.
Johnny
On May 17, 2015, at 11:45, Henk Gooijen
<henk.gooijen at hotmail.com> wrote:
You would need the TUK-50 interface (quad) module to hook the TK50
to a UNIBUS-based system.
The TQK-50 interface for TK50 to QBUS is common - TUK-50 is not ...
- Henk, PA8PDP
Thanks! I'll add some eBay searches. ;)
If I had one, would VMS 5.3 know what to do with it, though?
3354
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18 comments
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participants (4)
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