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

From: Roger Merchberger <zmerch_at_30below.com>
Date: Tue Nov 30 22:39:08 1999

Rumor has it that Richard Erlacher may have mentioned these words:

>Our local government facilities offer 8200 format to whoever asks for it,
>but they never offered 6250 BPI in the bureaus I occasionally visited.

We sent off 6250dpi tapes quite often... I suppose it's a regional thing.

>The 8500 has twice the capacity of
>the 8200 and the 8500C and 8505 have twice that.

On the 8505 / 8500C - your doubled capacity depends on the compression
ratio... if you achieve a 2:1 compression, you have indeed doubled your
storage. On the 8505's I worked on, I normally achieved 1.7:1.

> Currently used 8mm drives
>have twice what they have and the newer ones not only have doubled that on a
>112 meter tape, but quadrupled the transfer rates at the same time. Now,
>the tape drives I see them using hold nearly 60 GB all on a cartridge of
>which two will fit in your shirt pocket if you're not as fat as the average
>American.

Well, that limits me to one... assuming that I'm as fat as an average
American... (how fat is the average American???) Anywho, I'm ~25lb
overweight thanks to 2 heart attacks & I've not made time to exercise. Is
that average?

>Now, wouldn't YOU rather carry a $5 cartridge in you shirt pocket rather
>than 15 9-track reels, and how about buying them and storing them?

Actually, between the two, I'd rather have the 15 9-trackers... they're
cool. Of course, I'd rather have 3490 cartridges & drive... they're even
more cool. I can't *afford* the drives (new) and there's no used ones about
to scavange / rescue / trade for, so 'll take what I can get...

I'm not disputing the fact that the 8200's are superior / cheaper /
whatever... I've worked with those, the 8505's pretty extensively & quite a
few 4mm drives as well (just picked one up for myself to play with - it's a
trade...) I just disputed that an 8200 cart. held a "truckload" of 9-trackers.

Prost,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger   ---   sysadmin, Iceberg Computers
Recycling is good, right???  Ok, so I'll recycle an old .sig.
If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead
disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.
Received on Tue Nov 30 1999 - 22:39:08 GMT

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