1 Mar
2007
1 Mar
'07
5:15 a.m.
After a recent fight with some Cipher tape drives,
trying to boot a system, I managed to badly mangle the
leader of my boot tape. Now, rewriting the tape isn't
a problem, but fixing the tape is. I can cut off the
mangled leader, but then there won't be enough tape
left before the BOT marker. The BOT on a nine track is
just a hunk of sensing foil, just like I remember from
trying to repair eight track tapes (BTW, tinfoil and
double sided tape _doesn't_ work on eight tracks). Rat
Shack no longer sells sensing foil, surprise, surprise
- so, does anyone know of a currently available
solution? That metal duct work tape perhaps? I don't
want to use anything that might risk damage to the
heads though. Any ideas?
-Ian
1 Mar
1 Mar
5:30 a.m.
--- Mr Ian Primus <ian_primus at yahoo.com> wrote:
After a recent fight with some Cipher tape drives,
trying to boot a system, I managed to badly mangle
the
leader of my boot tape. Now, rewriting the tape
isn't
a problem, but fixing the tape is. I can cut off the
mangled leader, but then there won't be enough tape
left before the BOT marker. The BOT on a nine track
is
just a hunk of sensing foil, just like I remember
from
trying to repair eight track tapes (BTW, tinfoil and
double sided tape _doesn't_ work on eight tracks).
Rat
Shack no longer sells sensing foil, surprise,
surprise
- so, does anyone know of a currently available
solution? That metal duct work tape perhaps? I don't
want to use anything that might risk damage to the
heads though. Any ideas?
After a bit of googleing it looks as if the sensing
foil is still available, although it's meant for audio
use. Was that foil the same as the foil used in nine
tracks?
-Ian
7:40 a.m.
On 1 Mar 2007 at 5:30, Mr Ian Primus wrote:
> - so, does anyone know of a currently available
> solution? That metal duct work tape perhaps? I don't
> want to use anything that might risk damage to the
> heads though. Any ideas?
It's still available, but you have a look a bit. See, for example:
http://www.datalinksales.com/cgi-
bin/shop/datstore.cgi?user_action=detail&catalogno=011%20001000
Most of the audio sensing tape that I see emphasizes its conductive
aspect, while the stuff used for 1/2" tape is used as a reflective
medium. While the audio tape stuff might work, I'm not certain.
In the bad old days, it was not uncommon for a boot tape to turn up
with an error when you least needed it--or for you to have forgotten
to bring the boot tape for the system you needed to start--say, for a
system with a different configuration.
The practice then was to separate varioius boot records with BOT
markers--so you could simply hit LOAD and the drive would space
forward to the next load point. Probably one of the oldest "boot
manager" systems. Invaluable if you were out in the field a couple
of thousand miles from home.
I don't know if this will work with all of the autoloading drives,
but it certainly worked just fine on the floor-standing vacuum-column
units. But then, this was when you could take a large Samsonite case
full of tape as carry-on luggage and not have to worry about being
strip-searched.
Cheers,
Chuck
5:31 a.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mr Ian Primus" <ian_primus at yahoo.com>
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2007 2:15 PM
Subject: Nine track tape BOT sensing foil
After a recent fight with some Cipher tape drives,
trying to boot a system, I managed to badly mangle the
leader of my boot tape. Now, rewriting the tape isn't
a problem, but fixing the tape is.
Where are you located? I could send you 10-20 leaders
Nico
7:32 a.m.
Mr Ian Primus wrote:
After a recent fight with some Cipher tape drives,
trying to boot a system, I managed to badly mangle the
leader of my boot tape. Now, rewriting the tape isn't
a problem, but fixing the tape is. I can cut off the
mangled leader, but then there won't be enough tape
left before the BOT marker. The BOT on a nine track is
just a hunk of sensing foil, just like I remember from
trying to repair eight track tapes (BTW, tinfoil and
double sided tape _doesn't_ work on eight tracks). Rat
Shack no longer sells sensing foil, surprise, surprise
- so, does anyone know of a currently available
solution? That metal duct work tape perhaps? I don't
want to use anything that might risk damage to the
heads though. Any ideas?
I too have a package of 9-track sensing markers.
I could snip some off and send in an envelope.
Keven Miller
Orem Utah, US
8:23 a.m.
Mr Ian Primus wrote:
After a recent fight with some Cipher tape drives,
trying to boot a system, I managed to badly mangle the
leader of my boot tape. Now, rewriting the tape isn't
a problem, but fixing the tape is. I can cut off the
mangled leader, but then there won't be enough tape
left before the BOT marker. The BOT on a nine track is
just a hunk of sensing foil, just like I remember from
trying to repair eight track tapes (BTW, tinfoil and
double sided tape _doesn't_ work on eight tracks).
do you mean 9 tracks?
Rat
Shack no longer sells sensing foil, surprise, surprise
- so, does anyone know of a currently available
solution? That metal duct work tape perhaps? I don't
want to use anything that might risk damage to the
heads though.
the tape is on the opposite side of the tape from the heads, so
the main risk is when it goes thru the flux gate, and may damage
that.
Any ideas?
make sure anything you put on the side of the tape for the
sensor is not wide enough to be viewed by both the eot and
the bot sensor. I believe they are on on opposite sides of
the tape. The drives I had would "sense" the bot when doing
the load operation by just using a piece of paper and flashing
it in the gap under the sensor.
If you are using a streaming drive, and have limited access to
the area where the sensor is, and it is an "intelligent" drive
you probably can't play like I had to at times, by taking
the unit offline and hitting the load button. I could cause
the drive to seek a bot at any time by doing that, and
could experiment with different methods of doing what
you are doing easily.
BTW I am refering to a 100x cipher drive, and it's older
pertec tension arm cousins in this. No smarts in the
deck, just feedback circuits and servos.
Anyway, the short answer is that the duct tape you
refer to has mainly the risk of having adhesive
leak out in the long term, as it has much more
of that than the sensors you refer to.
The analog tape ones you refer to should work
as well, if positioned correctly. check that you
were putting them on the correct side of the tape,
as that makes a difference.
BTW as a side question, having simple controls,
just threading up the drive and hitting load when it
worked allowed for simply putting on multiple
load points on a tape, and having several tape
data sets accessible by just resetting the drive
offline, then hitting load again to get to each
load point.
I don't know if this is possible on the drives
like F880's or M4's or not.
Jim
-Ian
6:33 a.m.
--- Gordon JC Pearce <gordon at gjcp.net> wrote:
jim wrote:
do
you mean 9 tracks?
No - 8-Track cartridges ;-)
Were they ever used for data recording?
As far as I know, eight tracks weren't used for data,
although you could hook an 8 track recorder up to your
TRS-80 Color Computer if you wanted to, I assume.
But, yes, I was referring to repairing eight track
tape cartridges with that comment. I had tried
repairing a tape with double sided adhesive tape and
tinfoil. It changed tracks, and then promptly got
stuck as the (too stiff) foil splice hit the pinch
roller/capstan...
-Ian
> trying to repair eight track tapes (BTW,
tinfoil
and
> double sided tape _doesn't_ work on eight
tracks).
11:59 a.m.
> >> trying to repair eight track tapes (BTW,
tinfoil and double sided
> >> tape _doesn't_ work on eight tracks).
> > do you mean 9 tracks?
> No - 8-Track cartridges ;-)
> Were they ever used for data recording?
Well, . . . Hardly ever.
I saw a home made interface at a swap
It seems doubtful that tape splices would be satisfactory. Can you still
get "REAL" tape splicing equipment and supplies?
Trim ends
taper slightly to provide a SLIGHTLY narrower tape at the splice
scrape the coating off of the backing at the splice
line up with a jig
use developing fluid (also fun for playing with floppies!) to make sure
that tracks are lined up and synched
glue
carefully retrim
6:47 a.m.
The drive(s) I am working with is a Cipher F880. I
have two, neither of which work properly at the
moment, and I have been tinkering with trying to fix
one, or at least get it to run well enough to boot the
system. I was able to get my test boot tape repaired
well enough that it should be able to load (BTW: the
'synthetics' setting on my iron seems to work pretty
well on magtape). The drive won't load the tape
properly, and I think it has to do with the control
voltages for the takeup reel motor. Since the blower
motor isn't working, I have to thread the tape in
manually, and wrap it around the takeup. Then, on a
load cycle, the tape winds onto the takeup, then as
it's trying to get tension on the tape, it hits a snag
and stops, and if the tape is wrapped a slight bit
crooked on the takeup at this point, it flys off and
gets tangled (hence my problem in the first place).
I have the service manual for the drive (thanks
bitsavers!) and I am going to go about getting it
working again. I should have some time this weekend to
work on it.
I think I have a better handle on what's going on with
the drive, and I should be able to fix it - I'll post
again about it when I know more.
Thanks for the help!
-Ian
5:21 a.m.
On 01/03/2007 13:15, Mr Ian Primus wrote:
After a recent fight with some Cipher tape drives,
trying to boot a system, I managed to badly mangle the
leader of my boot tape.
Oops, been there, done that.
Shack no longer sells sensing foil, surprise,
surprise
- so, does anyone know of a currently available
solution?
I still have a card with most of a roll of 3M "650 sensing markers", the
1" long tabs. There were 250 on a card so if you're in the UK, I could
post you a few.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
6281
days inactive
6282
days old
11 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cclist＠sydex.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
gordon＠gjcp.net -
ian_primus＠yahoo.com -
jwstephens＠msm.umr.edu -
kevenm＠reeltapetransfer.com -
nico＠farumdata.dk -
pete＠dunnington.plus.com