Need docs & drivers for old tape drives

From: Tothwolf <tothwolf_at_concentric.net>
Date: Fri Feb 8 23:42:21 2002

On Fri, 8 Feb 2002, Sellam Ismail wrote:

> I really just need copies of the drivers or software, and ideally a
> copy of the documentation if necessary. I'm trying to build a
> dedicated conversion box with as many different drives as possible. I
> have a huge tower case I bought over 10 years ago with 10 bays and I'm
> finally putting it to use. So I'm in the process of finding all the
> various types of disk and tape drives so I can install them all and be
> able to do conversions without much hassle.

You might end up having to build more than one computer. I've been playing
with the idea of setting up something like this myself.

> Want:
>
> - Iomega Ditto [4]
> - DAT/DLT drive that will read just about any DAT/DLT tape
> - VCR backup system adaptor and software

Might want to add a Bernoulli 44MB to your list of drives. Those were very
common for quite awhile. I believe there may have also been a 20MB and
150MB Bernoulli drive. Do you have a controller for the 10MB drive? IIRC,
those need a special interface board to function. I also seem to remember
some of the Bernoulli drives would not work properly on anything faster
than a 386 or 486. I have a dual 10MB stored away somewhere, but I don't
think I have books for it. I may have an extra interface board somewhere.
The 44MB version also uses an interface board, but I'm not familiar with
the 20 or 150MB drives.

> [2] The current idea is to have whatever doesn't fit mounted on sleds
> so that a drive can be popped in to an empty bay easily for a
> particular conversion job.

For drives that use the floppy interface, you'll have to connect them one
at a time. You also can't use the floppy drive at the same time as the
tape drive, unless you put the tape drive on a dedicated second
controller. Not all tape drive software will support that configuration,
tho.
 
> [3] I think. At least the DC-6280 is the size of the tape that it
> accepts. I know there are tapes of the same size that have a
> different type number. Is there a definitive list of these on the web
> with pictures?

I don't know about pictures, but I did some searches on QIC-24 drives a
few weeks ago with Google and turned up a few incomplete charts and some
emails from various list archives. I believe there are 6-8 basic drive
types for QIC-11/QIC-24/QIC-15/etc.

> [4] Isn't this at least read compatible with a Colorado Jumbo 350?

You'll likely want to get some of the other models of Colorado Jumbo
drives too. The later drives can often read some of the other density
tapes, but can't write to them. The most reliable drive to use would
ideally be the same type as they were originally written with. There were
literally 100s of different DC2000 drives made over the years. A large
number of them used their own tape format, so you'll end up requiring alot
of different drives if you plan to support them all.

-Toth
Received on Fri Feb 08 2002 - 23:42:21 GMT