HP-85 consumables.

From: Eric Smith <eric_at_brouhaha.com>
Date: Fri Oct 3 15:28:24 2003

Jay wrote:
> I never said DC100, DC1000, and DC2000 cartridges were interchangeable...
> in fact they aren't.

I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth. I just was concerned that
you might buy a bunch of DC1000 tapes that might not work.

Some of the references I've found say that the HP-85 needs DC100, and
some say DC100A. I'm not sure what the difference is, but I'm guessing
that it may be the tape length, and possibly the thickness of the tape.
Tape length of DC100A cartridges is 140 ft; some references incorrectly
claim 307.5 ft, but that length didn't appear until the DC2060, and is
much thinner tape. The DC1000 is 185 ft and the DC2000 is 205 ft.
I can't find any info on the length of a DC100 (non-A) tape. I suppose
it's possible that there was only DC100A, and that references without
the A are just sloppy, but I wouldn't count on that either.

The HP part number was 98200A, and a lot of web sites claim that the
DC100A is the replacement, but I don't have any info I would considered
to be definitive.

One web site claims that their particular cleaning tapes can be used for
DC100, DC1000, and DC2000 drives. I don't think that can necessarily
be generalized to infer the same for all cleaning tapes. For example,
different brands of LTO Ultrium 1 tape drives originally needed different
cleaning tapes.

Can the HP-85 format a completely blank tape? Many HP cartridge tape
drives were not capable of doing that. I've got an HP-85 but have
never tried using a tape with it.

Eric
Received on Fri Oct 03 2003 - 15:28:24 BST