Swapmeet find

From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis_at_mcmanis.com>
Date: Sat May 6 19:18:47 2000

That is quite a find Don! The tapes are interchangable if you bulk erase
them first. I've got a bunch of TK50 marked tapes but very few TK70
marked tapes. Willing to trade! And no you can't just drop in the TK70,
at least in the Q-bus Vaxen they take different controllers and the
cable was a bit different.

--Chuck

Don Maslin wrote:
>
> At the local swap this morning I picked up a virgin TK70 streaming tape
> drive. When I say virgin, I mean it is in the shipping carton, is still
> sealed in an anti-static bag, includes the manual, and also that sheet
> of 'stickies' to make the meaning of various lights and such meaningful
> to those who do not understand English.
>
> In a discussion of COMPACTape II, it was stated that those tapes were
> interchangeable with the earlier tapes in the TK50 drives. It was also
> noted, as has been covered here several times, that if written to by a
> TK50, the tape was readable by a TK70 but could not be written to by
> a TK70. This is the first time I have heard that the use of the II
> tapes in a TK50 was a factory authorized usage. Interesting! Perhaps
> useful considering the scarcity of the older tapes.
>
> Question: Can a TK70 be used as a 'drop-in' replacement for a TK50 in
> a VAXstation 2000? If so, I would assume that it would NOT record at
> TK70 density.
>
> - don
Received on Sat May 06 2000 - 19:18:47 BST