HP 85 & a bit more.

From: Joe <rigdonj_at_intellistar.net>
Date: Tue Mar 16 22:19:16 1999

At 07:50 PM 3/16/99 -0600, you wrote:
>A couple of points:
>
>On the almost nothing they have in common... Physically, they
>don't, and they don't really have much in common in terms of the
>tracks on the tape. But they've got a unique feature in common.
>They are used in a way that are block addressable, like a disk.
>In fact Thompson's first UNIX on the PDP-7 used the original
>DECtape as it's primary storage.
>
>On the use of DECtape IIs for the HP-85 and 9800 series... Please
>don't. As much as I love my HPs, I desperately keep any DECtape IIs
>I have for use with DEC stuff. The DECtape IIs are formatted at
>the factory and I know of no way to format them with controllers
>in the field. (I'd love to be proved wrong about that, BTW.) So
>I (and I'm sure others) would be grateful if DECtape IIs could be
>saved for use with TU-58s.

Brian,

  I appreciate your feelings for the DECtapes but I offered them on this
list and no one was interested. FWIW the HP tapes suck! The media flakes
off of even the new ones. I never had that probelm with DECtapes.

   Joe
Received on Tue Mar 16 1999 - 22:19:16 GMT