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

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Tue Nov 30 22:58:38 1999

It's no secret that Roger Merchberger <zmerch_at_30below.com previously has
uttered:

-----Original Message-----
From: Roger Merchberger <zmerch_at_30below.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Tuesday, November 30, 1999 9:44 PM
Subject: Re: Obsolete media (was: Whats the screwiest thing you collect?)


>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?


YES

>>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
>tra de...) I just disputed that an 8200 cart. held a "truckload" of
9-trackers.


I was, when I made the original remark, grossly hyperbolizing, but in the
spirit of "Why the h*ll didn't they do that much sooner?" My 8505XL
routinely gets about the 1.7x compression from hardware compression and
somewhat improves the already-compressed data it gets from the old backup
software. One volume, mostly text, gets bout 2.2x, though. My 160 meter
tapes are adequate for a nominally 15GB system backup. I find that so long
as I (or my clients) have backup devices which allow the entire backup set
to be recorded on a single element of the medium in question, they have good
backups whenever they're needed. With the ones requiring manual media
shuffling, all bets are off.

Dick

>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 - 22:58:38 GMT