Some models of 3420s were 7 track. -- Will
On Thu, Feb 4, 2016 at 9:56 PM, Jon Elson <[email protected]> wrote: > On 02/04/2016 07:48 PM, Mike Loewen wrote: >> >> >> I'm trying to identify a system which appeared in "The Killer Elite" >> (1975), with a room full of tape drives and a couple of terminals: >> >> http://q7.neurotica.com/killer-1.png >> http://q7.neurotica.com/killer-2.png >> http://q7.neurotica.com/killer-6.png >> http://q7.neurotica.com/killer-9.png >> >> The drives appear to be IBM 3420s, but with an additional box on top, >> labeled "SMS". The system itself doesn't appear in any of the shots. Some >> sort of IBM 370, perhaps? >> > I'm thinking they might be 2420's. They have a "9" label on the head cover. > This is to distinguish 9-track from 7-track drives, I don't think they put > those labels on 3420 drives. > > The drive addresses are 5xx, meaning they are attached to channel 5 on the > CPU. That is not impossible on a 360, but few 360's could handle that many > channels. The cluster of 3270's also suggests a 370 system, although they > certainly could be used on 360's. > > The SMS boxes displayed the volume label of the tape to mount. Mounting the > wrong tape was a BIG problem in large systems, so a number of vendors came > up with these sorts of schemes to try to reduce those errors. > > Jon
