SCSI Tape to TAP utility

[Chuck Guzis]

On 08/09/2015 01:25 PM, Dave G4UGM wrote:

> On the Honeywell we had a Tape Management System that managed the
> tapes.  All the tapes were filed by tape number, and the system knew
> which file was on which tape. It would tell the operators which tape
> number to mount. It would also manage the scratch pool of expired
> tapes and tell them which tapes to have ready for new outputs. It
> also managed off site storage. We trusted it and never removed a
> write ring. If you mounted a tape with current data the system read
> the label and dis-mounted the tape....

I think that most large mainframe OSs eventually had a similar feature. 
  When you had operators who were barely trained, it was best to leave 
it to the system.

On the CDC 60x and 65x, my tapes never had a write ring in them (what 
else are you going to play ring-toss with while waiting for your job to 
complete?).  I always kept a few cards in my shirt pocked to stick 
behind the mounted reel and trip the write-enable mechanism (which 
latched).  When the autoloading 66x drives came in, part of my world 
disappeared. I've never tried to see if that trick works on minicomputer 
reel-to-reel drives.

--Chuck