Tapes and close to a quarter-century.

[bmcculley at rcn.com]

mod, doubt it will help you, but I do know where there's a set of PDP-11s with 9-track tapes in 24x7 production control use.

Unfortunately they're in Orange County CA.  

I helped "upgrade" the hardware (from 11/44s and 11/70s to a less-old PDP-11/84 configuration) just over two years ago.  

btw if anyone has any 8" floppy disks they might be in need of replacement media for their old Foxboro controllers, they were having intermittent boot problems while I was there - as I recall those drives had r/w heads that actually remained in contact with the media surface, so erosion of the oxide was a very real concern!

As to why they're still using such old gear, it's the expense of re-validating an FDA approved life-critical manufacturing process.  Interesting example of unintended consequences, the FDA tightens regs to improve quality but grandfathers existing production systems so those systems become permanent legacies long after they're past design life - gotta wonder if the net effect of the regs is positive or not!

-lbm

L. Bruce McCulley, CISSP
just another 16-bit pro devo

---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 08:56:36 -0400
>From: "Michael ODonnell" <michael.odonnell at comcast.net>  
>Subject: Re: Tapes and close to a quarter-century.   
>To: gnhlug-discuss at mail.gnhlug.org
>
>
>
>Speaking of tapes: I have a half-dozen 9-track
>reels from back around 1993 that I'd love to salvage
>the bits from before either the oxide deteriorates
>or this type of equipment becomes %100 extinct -
>anybody know anybody with a 9-track drive?
> 
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