Obsolete media (was: Whats the screwiest thing you collect?)

From: Sipke de Wal <sipke_at_wxs.nl>
Date: Tue Nov 30 15:17:51 1999

Give the machine needs doesn't need a huge amount of current you
can make your own 3-phase power from joining 3-groups in your
home/workplace. You'llbe limited by the max current the fuses of
that group can handle. And you'll need to find out the live
wires of those groups. Check a handbook on the subject.

Megan wrote:
>
> >IMHO, it makes little sense to retain media for washing-machine-sized
> >disk drives if you don't retain the drives and maintain them in order to
> >retain the value of the media. Hindsight is always 20/20, but wouldn't
> >it make sense to archive data/software on an archival medium, likely, we
> >hope, to remain useable over time, rather than to store it on what's
> >intended for on-line storage, and is likely to become obsolete within a
> >couple of years of when it was developed?
>
> Unless there is no equivalent... I've got the exact problem with the
> DECsystem-10 I got earlier this year... it came with two RP06 drives.
> They are 3-phase drives. We don't yet have three phase power (or a
> close approximation of it), so cannot run the drives. Without the
> drives, we cannot even load the microcode for the machine, so it is
> a very large paper-weight.
>
> I've been looking of a non-three-phase replacement for the drives, but
> we still would need three-phase to get the data off the disks I have.
>
> We have, however, been getting all the data off the tapes so as not
> to lose it.
>
> It would be great if there was a massbus interface for a more recent
> tape drive, and the same for a disk... it would be neat to be able to
> have a DAT tape acting like a TU77 or something supported by the machine,
> and a couple of SCSI or even IDE disks acting as RM03 or RP06 disks...
>
> (anyone know of any? Anyone up for the challenge of designing one?)
>
> Megan Gentry
> Former RT-11 Developer
>
> +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
> | Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com |
> | Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com |
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> +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
Received on Tue Nov 30 1999 - 15:17:51 GMT

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