> From: Ethan Dicks <ethan.di...@gmail.com> > Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2017 15:21:54 -0400
> On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 2:35 PM, Gary Lee Phillips <tivo.ov...@gmail.com> > wrote: >> Looking at what images I can find on the web, TU-80 seems correct. The one >> we had was just generally flaky, I guess. It was 1600 bpi, 2400 foot tapes, >> yes. > 2400' tapes (1.5mil thickness) were standard but sometime later, thinner (1.0 > mil?) 3600' tapes came out. I have read tape drive instructions that say not > to use those tapes in this machine. I wouldn't be surprised if most DEC tape > drives didn't like thinner tape. At LOTS (the Stanford academic computing facility where I worked from 1984-91), we did nightly incrementals and weekly full backups on the DEC-20s, SC-30M (a DEC-20 clone), and 2 VAXen, the staff-support 3600 and the student available 8800 (both running Ultrix). On the -20s, weekly backups took up 3 2400' reels (only a small portion of the 3rd reel being used). When Memorex came out with their 3600' tapes, I switched us over to using them so that weekly backups (rotated on a monthly basis) took up less space; nightly incrementals used 2400' because it was almost unheard of fot need more than 1, and they were a sunk cost. The 3600' tapes worked very nicely on TU78/TU79 drives and on the STC drives on the SC-30M, and I don't recall any complaints about them on the TU81s attached to the VAXen. As operations manager, I would have heard. Rich _______________________________________________ Simh mailing list Simh@trailing-edge.com http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh