From: <felten_at_vaxnet.de>
To: <cctech_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2004 2:58 PM
Subject: TU80 and F880 magtapes, cleaning and usage?
>
> Hello,
>
> I've connected a Cipher F880 to a qbus pdp11 using a Emulex TC02.
> Althrough I've got the complete doc for the TC02, I can't get the drive
> to work correctly.
I know nothing about neither Emulex nor PDP, but I do know about 9 track
drives, especially M4 and Qualstar.
Have you seen
http://www.electrovalueinc.com/9_track_drives.htm ?
The drive has built-in diagnostics, so this is the first thing to try.
Tapes deteriorate with age, so that could be the problem too.
Another problem could be "stitching", which looks as if layes of tape are
glued together.
According to the web site mentioned before, the drive is 1600/3200 bpi, so
you will not be able to read 800 and 6250 bpi tapes.
For cleaning, you need isopropylalcohol. Dont forget to clean the "knife"
just in front of the read/write head. Some drives (I am not familiar with
the Cipher drives of that period) have a small "vacuum cleaner" just before
the read/write heads.
If you cant get it working, and nobody else can help you, I would be happy
to try to read the tape and copy it to a CD. Please see my recent mail "Most
Significant Bits"
All the best
Nico
Received on Fri Jan 02 2004 - 08:26:11 GMT