5 Oct
2011
5 Oct
'11
1:04 p.m.
I had three 9-tracks I'd picked up a few years ago. None worked
out of the box; they collected dust. Last weekend I knew I'd pass
by http://www.comco-inc.com/ in Bettendorf, Iowa, one of the few
9-track sales and service places I'd found. I didn't have much
advance warning, so I just brought the drives with me and left them
at his door step because the shop was closed. I left an M4 9914,
an Overland Data 5622, and an HP 88780.
Diagnosis is $495, deductable from repairs if I proceed. Ouch!
He says he still sells "a few" 9-tracks a year. His offer to me
was a reconditioned HP 88780 for $1795 including manual, cleaning pads
and a scratch tape.
He said "BIG IDEA... Here's a wonderful chance to corner the 9-track
business: I'll sell you 1000 lbs of parts for $1,000 (FOB Bettendorf).
I'll even throw in graphics, manuals, etc. At the very least, you
will be able to build several drives. I am not kidding."
The building he's in has a commercial real-estate "for sale" sign
out front. Maybe he was a renter and he needs to move.
- John
24 Jan
24 Jan
8:40 a.m.
At 02:04 PM 10/5/2011, I wrote:
I had three 9-tracks I'd picked up a few years ago.
None worked
out of the box; they collected dust. Last weekend I knew I'd pass
by http://www.comco-inc.com/ in Bettendorf, Iowa, one of the few
9-track sales and service places I'd found.
This fellow called me again today, out of the blue.
In the year ahead, he hopes to sell his building and down-size,
focusing on the repair of smaller drives and dumping the bulk
of his 9-track business. It sounds like he has a bunch of
88780-class 9-tracks that'll go to the scrapper.
He wishes there was a modern replacement for reading old tapes.
Seven-track and nine-track. Speed is not an issue; data recovery is.
He says hardly anyone wants to write to tapes any more.
A simple transport, a flexible read-head, a bunch of software, right?
Call it TapeFerret.
He mentioned another company that makes a modern 7-track drive and
sells it for $50K+ to the seismic end of the oil industry.
And that's where his 9-track business is today: much is for the oil
industry mostly outside the USA. They want to read old seismic data
and reprocess it using new techniques to find more oil. Another more
profitable business is fixing more recent tape drives for IBM mainframes.
Another chunk is a few specific models of 9-track that work with
old Alcatel phone switches. There's still some equipment and
processes that require a real drive and that does not work with
tape emulators.
I offered to hook him up with buyers for any still-working units
he doesn't want to keep when he downsizes his business.
I also offered to connect him with the professional classic computer
curators who might need his help when it comes to reading or
restoring old tape media and devices.
- John
9:04 a.m.
On Jan 24, 2012, at 11:40 AM, John Foust wrote:
He wishes there was a modern replacement for reading
old tapes.
Seven-track and nine-track. Speed is not an issue; data recovery is.
He says hardly anyone wants to write to tapes any more.
A simple transport, a flexible read-head, a bunch of software, right?
Call it TapeFerret.
I've had this idea kicking around in my head for a while now, but I know I don't
have the mechanical expertise to make a tape drive. I'd gladly team up with someone
who does, though... modern microcontrollers make the motor control aspects pitifully easy,
and they generally have the horsepower (and ADCs, if necessary) to read the data
reliably.
He mentioned another company that makes a modern
7-track drive and
sells it for $50K+ to the seismic end of the oil industry.
Yeah, I'd be interested. Anyone a good hand at mechanical design? I know very good
motor control and analog people.
- Dave
9:16 a.m.
At 11:04 AM 1/24/2012, David Riley wrote:
On Jan 24, 2012, at 11:40 AM, John Foust wrote:
> He wishes there was a modern replacement for reading old tapes.
> Seven-track and nine-track. Speed is not an issue; data recovery is.
> He says hardly anyone wants to write to tapes any more.
>
> A simple transport, a flexible read-head, a bunch of software, right?
> Call it TapeFerret.
A few minutes after I wrote that, I found Al Kossow's project:
<http://bitsavers.org/tools/wizl/tapewizl/>http://bitsavers.org/tools/wizl/tapewizl/
It uses an IBM 3480 head.
What's the latest on that project, Al?
Is my faulty memory also remembering that Jerome Fine did something
like this once upon a time?
- John
6:46 p.m.
John Foust wrote:
A few minutes after I wrote that, I found Al
Kossow's project:
<http://bitsavers.org/tools/wizl/tapewizl/>http://bitsavers.org/tools/wizl/tapewizl/
It uses an IBM 3480 head.
What's the latest on that project, Al?
Is my faulty memory also remembering that Jerome Fine did something
like this once upon a time?
The only tapes I have EVER used were the TK50 and TK70,
in particular the TK70 which I actually used for backups
for about 5 years until I acquired a few Sony SMO S-501
magneto optical drives and media.
Well, I did bring home a 9 track about 15 years ago, but I
never used it since I only had one. I did not consider it
to be reasonable to depend on a single point of failure in
respect of using it for backups.
I still have the Sony SMO S-501 drives and media, along
with the TK50 and TK70 and media, but the 9 track tape
drive is long gone.
Jerome Fine
25 Jan
25 Jan
4:54 p.m.
On 1/24/12 6:46 PM, Jerome H. Fine wrote:
>
<http://bitsavers.org/tools/wizl/tapewizl/>http://bitsavers.org/tools/wizl/tapewizl/
> It uses an IBM 3480 head.
>
> What's the latest on that project, Al?
>
John Bordynuik has been using a similar design for several years, and hopefully he
will be donating a system to CHM this year.
24 Jan
24 Jan
1:53 p.m.
On 01/24/2012 11:40 AM, John Foust wrote:
At 02:04 PM 10/5/2011, I wrote:
Damn. I wish he weren't in the middle of nowhere; I'd love to have a
stack of those.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
New Kensington, PA
I had three 9-tracks I'd picked up a few
years ago. None worked
out of the box; they collected dust. Last weekend I knew I'd pass
by http://www.comco-inc.com/ in Bettendorf, Iowa, one of the few
9-track sales and service places I'd found.
This fellow called me again today, out of the blue.
In the year ahead, he hopes to sell his building and down-size,
focusing on the repair of smaller drives and dumping the bulk
of his 9-track business. It sounds like he has a bunch of
88780-class 9-tracks that'll go to the scrapper.
4666
days inactive
4779
days old
6 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
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aek＠bitsavers.org -
fraveydank＠gmail.com -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to -
mcguire＠neurotica.com