HP tape drive novel repair

[Jay West]

Mike wrote...
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I have a 7970E in a 7971A rack, which can take two 7970E drives.  I elected
to mount a 2109E and a 9895A underneath the 7970E.
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Nice rig. You have one of the "newer" style racks which have a more
(industry) standard post/mounting setup. I had one or two of those, but got
rid of them in favor of standardizing on the older style racks which I had
more of (02940-90306). Plus my dual 2100-based Access system is in the
"correct" rack, which was the dual bay with the front "running board"
(29404B).

HP rack docs for the stuff I use insist on the cpu's and most other devices
going in one rack and the tape drives in a separate rack. I'd suspect for
power distribution reasons (each rack held 20A).

The HP specs for 2000/Access systems (as factory delivered at the time of
printing at least) called for rack1 to hold the 2 cpus, rack2 to hold the
tape and 13037 (disc) subsystem box, and all disk drives to be installed in
one drive per "low boy" rack (29425A) ie. racks3-10 for a maximum config.

I have two of the 29425A racks, one is actively in use (7906) and the other
is waiting to be restored. I hope to use that one for this build but it will
need a new formica top which probably won't be cheap to obtain. Not sure if
I have all the skins/doors for it so I may have to just use the one already
restored/running.

So this system build will have 3 racks, two 2940's (one for two cpus, one
for tape & 13037), and one of the 29425A's with a 7906.

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I've also worked on a 7970E in the slanted "low boy" cabinet.  There's a lot
of wasted space in there.
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Very cool. I've always wanted one of those, just cause they look so neat.
But like Marc, I have never seen one in the wild.

J