9-track tape drive: What is this?

From: Tony Duell <ard_at_odin.phy.bris.ac.uk>
Date: Tue Aug 19 11:58:48 1997

A guess only :

>
> I have absolutely no idea. It's plenty large, though...
>
> There's two boxes. One is the drive, the other is ???
> The other is lighter than the drive.
> I'll drag it in here first.
>
> The front panel on the box says:
> HP 1000 A900

I suspect this is an HP1000-series processor. Exactly what it is depends
on what cards are in it.

> HEWLETT PACKARD.
>
> It appears to fit into a DEC rack...

Standard 19" rack, I guess. A lot of stuff (computers, peripherals,
test gear,etc) fits that standard rack. There are also (much rarer) wider
racks for things that just can't fit into 19" - like big monitors.

> It says "hp 7970E"

I think that's a standard HP 9-track tape drive.

>
> Buttons a re LOAD, REWIND, ONLINE, RESET, 0, 1, 2, 3, OFF
> Connector is a small printer-plug looking thing (Like the plug on your
> printer, but smaller.

If it's a 24 pin connector (12 pins on each side) then it's almost
certainly HPIB/GPIB/IEEE-488 (all basically the same interface). HP used
this _hardware standard_ on a lot of their peripherals including disk
drives, tape drives, printers, test gear, etc. The same interface is
available for many other machines from HP calculators (!) to large minis.
A PC interface card is certainly made (by a number of companies, not just
HP), but won't be cheap.

>
> I do have a scratch tape, how does one get the tape into these?

Well, I've not used that particular drive, but if it's a manual loader,
you open the front door, put the tape on the empty hub, thread it up
(there's normally a diagram inside), close the door and press 'Load'

If it's an autoloader (like the DEC TS-05) then you open the flap (you may
need power-on to do this), put the tape in the slot, close the flap and
press the load button.

>
> Any info is appreciated.
>
>
>

-tony
Received on Tue Aug 19 1997 - 11:58:48 BST