Emulex TC02 and Qualstar Tape Drive

From: Douglas Taylor <dj.taylor_at_starpower.net>
Date: Wed Jul 7 19:35:37 2004

At 07:13 PM 7/6/2004, you wrote:
> > MSA0: drive but it is not online or available, just what does this mean?
>
>Frequently with a tapedrive offline means only that a switch need be
>pushed on it's frontpanel, often depending on a tape load before it.
>Trivial to us oldtimers, but maybe not to newcomers.
>
>John A.


I always wanted to have a reel to reel tape drive and now I have one. The
mistake I made was not checking google before opening my mouth. I found
out that the TC02 does not work in Vax with VMS > 4.x, however I did put
the TC02 into a PDP11/53 and got it to work.

This was not easy since the only cables I have were about 18 inches long so
the tape drive had to be right next to the BA23 chassis and I only have
one!!!! tape and no write ring. So I used tape in place of a write ring
and got the PDP to actually see the tape and Init it under RT11 and read
and write to it. What a great feeling to see the tape move! Aren't old
computers fun!!!???

Any advice on cables? I need 50 pin card edge on the tape side and 50 pin
IDC on the TC02 side, the DQ3153 wants 50 pin male Centronics connectors
instead of IDC. What's a good place to order parts?

Doug
Received on Wed Jul 07 2004 - 19:35:37 BST