28 Jan
2019
28 Jan
'19
2:04 p.m.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/132933407806
this is interesting because of the price and that all of the Sun drives
I've ever come across had the 800bpi option in them
28 Jan
28 Jan
5:19 p.m.
On Mon, 28 Jan 2019 14:04:42 -0800
Al Kossow via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/132933407806
this is interesting because of the price and that all of the Sun
drives I've ever come across had the 800bpi option in them
That's been my experience, too. The 88780 I use is a Sun drive with
800/1600/6250.
What I love about these drives is that each track is adjustable
electronically for skew - which means one can adjust it to read
incorrectly skewed tapes without having to adjust/move the tape head!
(Of course, you have to re-adjust it "back" to normal - which makes it
something you want to do only when absolutely necessary).
I only wish the 88780's tape handling was a bit more "gentle"...
Cheers,
Lyle
--
73 NM6Y
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
http://bickleywest.com
"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"
7:57 p.m.
On 2019-01-28 9:19 p.m., Lyle Bickley via cctalk wrote:
On Mon, 28 Jan 2019 14:04:42 -0800
Al Kossow via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I recall from my field service days these where a pretty fast streamer
and very reliable.
I remember one customer that had one and their data center manager had
bought some used tapes from a friend, these tapes where in such bad
shape that one of them stuck to the head hard enough to stall the reel
motor, which resulted in a billable service call.? Next time I went back
the data center manager and his tapes where gone.
Another call I went on for something other than one of these tape
drives, as I am going into the data center I pass a guy pulling tape out
of the front of the drive, I thought it looked weird but didn't say
anything.? It was a quick call and on my way out I stopp3ed and asked
what he was doing and he told me the drive missed the EOT marker and
wound completely onto the drive reel and he was now removing it by
pulling it out by hand.? I told him he could have saved himself a lot of
trouble and not destroyed the tape if he had just wound a few feet onto
the supply reel manually, and then a quick load, reset and rewind his
reply was "Oh no that would never work!" I was like ok what ever, but by
that point it didn't really matter as he already had half a 3600 foot
reel in a heap in front of him.
Paul.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/132933407806
this is interesting because of the price and that all of the Sun
drives I've ever come across had the 800bpi option in them
That's been my
experience, too. The 88780 I use is a Sun drive with
800/1600/6250.
What I love about these drives is that each track is adjustable
electronically for skew - which means one can adjust it to read
incorrectly skewed tapes without having to adjust/move the tape head!
(Of course, you have to re-adjust it "back" to normal - which makes it
something you want to do only when absolutely necessary).
I only wish the 88780's tape handling was a bit more "gentle"...
Cheers,
Lyle 
8:08 p.m.
I was the mass storage region specialist for HP Australia when these came out. They were
pretty reliable and compared to the previous 7970 and 7974 drives that had start/stop
capstans, they were pretty good on tapes.
I just restored a 7980XC (HP commercial version of the 88780) and it all worked after I
reinitialised the gains in each channel.
David Collins
+61 424 785 131
On 29 Jan 2019, at 2:57 pm, Paul Berger via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 2019-01-28 9:19 p.m., Lyle Bickley via cctalk
wrote:
On Mon, 28 Jan 2019 14:04:42 -0800
Al Kossow via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I recall from my field service days these where a pretty fast streamer and very
reliable.
I remember one customer that had one and their data center manager had bought some used
tapes from a friend, these tapes where in such bad shape that one of them stuck to the
head hard enough to stall the reel motor, which resulted in a billable service call. Next
time I went back the data center manager and his tapes where gone.
Another call I went on for something other than one of these tape drives, as I am going
into the data center I pass a guy pulling tape out of the front of the drive, I thought it
looked weird but didn't say anything. It was a quick call and on my way out I
stopp3ed and asked what he was doing and he told me the drive missed the EOT marker and
wound completely onto the drive reel and he was now removing it by pulling it out by hand.
I told him he could have saved himself a lot of trouble and not destroyed the tape if he
had just wound a few feet onto the supply reel manually, and then a quick load, reset and
rewind his reply was "Oh no that would never work!" I was like ok what ever, but
by that point it didn't really matter as he already had half a 3600 foot reel in a
heap in front of him.
Paul.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/132933407806
this is interesting because of the price and that all of the Sun
drives I've ever come across had the 800bpi option in them
That's been my
experience, too. The 88780 I use is a Sun drive with
800/1600/6250.
What I love about these drives is that each track is adjustable
electronically for skew - which means one can adjust it to read
incorrectly skewed tapes without having to adjust/move the tape head!
(Of course, you have to re-adjust it "back" to normal - which makes it
something you want to do only when absolutely necessary).
I only wish the 88780's tape handling was a bit more "gentle"...
Cheers,
Lyle
29 Jan
29 Jan
8:55 a.m.
On 1/28/19 8:08 PM, David Collins via cctalk wrote:
I just restored a 7980XC (HP commercial version of the
88780) and it all worked after I reinitialised the gains in each channel.
David, do you know of anyone that has the schematics for these drives?
MANY years ago, someone in Seattle had them, but I never was able to get the guy who
said he got a copy tell me who that was.
11:31 a.m.
At 10:55 AM 1/29/2019, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
David, do you know of anyone that has the schematics
for these drives?
MANY years ago, someone in Seattle had them, but I never was able to get the guy who
said he got a copy tell me who that was.
Do you know this guy?
http://www.comco-inc.com/hp-88780-9-track-tape-drive-p29921.html
I posted about his a few years ago. See below.
- John
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:40:33 -0600
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
From: John Foust <jfoust at threedee.com>
Subject: Re: Want a 9-track repair business?
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
Date: Wed, 05 Oct 2011 15:04:41 -0500
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
From: John Foust <jfoust at threedee.com>
Subject: Want a 9-track repair business?
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
11:45 a.m.
On Jan 29, 2019, at 2:31 PM, John Foust via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
...
I posted about his a few years ago. See below.
...
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.
The design described by John Bordynuik seems like a good one, and would be easier still by
now. A Beaglebone with FPGA daughtercard is probably plenty for the signal processing
part.
A 30+ track head to deal with a variety of tape formats would be ideal. Not just 7 and 9
but real oddballs -- there are some 10 track 1/2 inch tape formats around. Not to mention
that one could read DECtape that way, even if the head is only 1/2 inch wide (some loss of
redundancy in that case).
Are the heads that Bordynuik mentioned still around?
paul
11:53 a.m.
On 2019-01-29 14:45, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
A 30+ track head to deal with a variety of tape
formats would be ideal. Not just 7 and 9 but real oddballs -- there are some 10 track 1/2
inch tape formats around. Not to mention that one could read DECtape that way, even if
the head is only 1/2 inch wide (some loss of redundancy in that case).
Are the heads that Bordynuik mentioned still around?
On ebay? IBM 31F7092 36 Track ...
10:48 p.m.
Al, I'm afraid I don?t... They were made in Greely Colorado but that plant has long
since closed and I don?t have any contacts from there.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech <cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org> On Behalf Of Al Kossow via cctech
Sent: Wednesday, 30 January 2019 3:55 AM
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: sun 88780 on ebay
On 1/28/19 8:08 PM, David Collins via cctalk wrote:
I just restored a 7980XC (HP commercial version of the
88780) and it all worked after I reinitialised the gains in each channel.
David, do you know of anyone that has the schematics for these drives?
MANY years ago, someone in Seattle had them, but I never was able to get the guy who said
he got a copy tell me who that was.
1:44 a.m.
On Mon, 28 Jan 2019, Al Kossow wrote:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/132933407806
this is interesting because of the price and that all of the Sun drives
I've ever come across had the 800bpi option in them
I read
HP Tape Drive 1/2" 1600/6250 1E
on the label at the back.
Christian
11 Feb
11 Feb
10:01 a.m.
On Mon, Jan 28, 2019 at 6:03 PM Al Kossow via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
It was packaged improperly by the seller and destroyed in transit.
10:11 a.m.
On 2/11/19 10:01 AM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote:
On Mon, Jan 28, 2019 at 6:03 PM Al Kossow via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
It was packaged improperly by the seller and destroyed in transit.
Happens all too often. Palletizing is probably the safest, but try and
get a seller to do that.
--Chuck
10:18 a.m.
Does it have the 800 bpi option board?
On 2/11/19 10:01 AM, Eric Smith wrote:
On Mon, Jan 28, 2019 at 6:03 PM Al Kossow via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org <mailto:cctalk at classiccmp.org>> wrote:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/132933407806
It was packaged improperly by the seller and destroyed in transit.
12:24 p.m.
On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 11:18 AM Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:
Does it have the 800 bpi option board?
I haven't yet unboxed it. I took photos of the outside of the destroyed box
to send to the shipper. The front bottom left corner of the 88780 is
visible through a hole in the box, and is visibly mangled.
I'll take more photos as I unbox it tonight.
Based on the service manual, it appears that option 800 requires:
* buffer PCA 07980-6xx14 (512K) or 07980-6xx34 (1M)
* read/write/formatter PCA 07980-6xx31
Were there any other hardware changes for option 800? If not, one wonders
why HP documentation is adamant that it cannot be field-upgraded to option
800.
5:23 p.m.
I am in the market for this option as well, after Al is taken care of if he
needs it.
On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 1:27 PM Eric Smith via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 11:18 AM Al Kossow <aek at
bitsavers.org> wrote:
Does it have the 800 bpi option board?
I haven't yet unboxed it. I took photos of the outside of the destroyed box
to send to the shipper. The front bottom left corner of the 88780 is
visible through a hole in the box, and is visibly mangled.
I'll take more photos as I unbox it tonight.
Based on the service manual, it appears that option 800 requires:
* buffer PCA 07980-6xx14 (512K) or 07980-6xx34 (1M)
* read/write/formatter PCA 07980-6xx31
Were there any other hardware changes for option 800? If not, one wonders
why HP documentation is adamant that it cannot be field-upgraded to option
800.
12 Feb
12 Feb
6:39 a.m.
On 11/02/2019, Eric Smith via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote (in part):
I haven't yet unboxed it. I took photos of the
outside of the destroyed box
to send to the shipper. The front bottom left corner of the 88780 is
visible through a hole in the box, and is visibly mangled.
Who was the seller? (The ebay link did not list the seller.)
N.
1910
days inactive
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days old
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