sun 88780 on ebay

[John Foust]

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