On 23 July 2010 18:05, William Donzelli <[email protected]> wrote: > On 23 July 2010 12:25, O'Brien, David W. (NIH/CIT) [C] > <[email protected]> wrote: >> I've been asked to locate a 7 track tape drive in the DC area. >> >> Would anyone know of one? > > Can we ask why someone needs a 7-track? > > If it is to read some old, forgotten tapes with important data, I > suggest strongly that you contract with one of the companies that > specialize in reading obsolete formats - the guys that have the > experience and know where all the pitfalls are. Chances are these 7 > track tapes are probably ancient, and will need all sorts of gentle > prep work to get successful reads.
The trick is to find a place that has built a GMR-heads based drive. The 7-track -- and indeed all "round tape" -- technology precedes the invention (or at least commercialization) of GMR heads (Wikipedia has 1988 for the invention/discovery of GMR), and so requires fairly high tape speeds for the magneto-inductive heads in question, with the related risk of physical damage. GMR allows, in theory, infinitely slow movement of the tape past the read heads, and is thus much more likely not to damage the tape, even if multiple passes are required for various reasons. > If you need to write to a 7 track tape - well, that will leave most of > us wondering why - but the same guys probably can do it. If it is a > *very* small amount of data, I may be able to write it with an old > Mohawk key to tape terminal I have, but it has been years since I > played with the thing. The mind boggles at the notion of there being a business case for writing 7-track tapes. Hobbyists I can understand; nih.gov would be another thing entirely. Tony H. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
