9-Track Magnetic Tape

[aei05h1]

Where do you put the coal?

[Paleoferrosaurus]

@aei05h1 The coal goes in the tender. From there the stoker moves it to the firebox...

[jvolstad]

Real puters' use reel-to-reel tape. ;-)

[coatlecue]

yep. time to drive it to the garage for a much needed sledge hammering

[RODALCO2007]

Interesting machine.

Thanks for showing

[b3organ]

You might consider fixing the bearings or whatever mechanical parts are defective on this drive.  There's a lot of interesting 9-track data out there. I've got a copy of Cookie Bear somewhere on 9-track.

[Paleoferrosaurus]

@b3organ It's been fixed since the video was made... The sole mechanical issue was the bent capstan shaft on the encoder wheel. So far, I've been able to read 40 (or so) old tapes. Lots of old data and some pretty interesting software. My favourite tape had a very old dump of a Unix filesystem. Old enough that it pre-dated TAR or the current version of DUMP. Still trying to get the boot block descrambled...

[b3organ]

@Paleoferrosaurus

I think I may have the unix source for C (written in B). Good news on the fix. Bent capstan is about the worst case problem for a drive.

[jtel]

Nice.

[1987ian]

boring!

[fertub26]

that seems like opeen reel but always rewind and forward for search the information, poor heads... how much is the capacity of this tape (Mb) ?

[Paleoferrosaurus]

@fertub26 Capacity depends on both tape length and recording density - This tape was recorded (written) at 1600 bytes-per-inch and is 2400 feet long for a maximum theoretical capacity of about 46 megabytes. Maximum density for this tape drive is 6250 bytes-per-inch and the maximum tape length is 3600 feet. Assuming a 32K block size, that would give you a maximum of 250 megabytes on a tape.

[DMahalko]

Since memory was so expensive, these usually were not buffered reads or writes. A single block of data is only a few inches, so it must quick move, read/write, and then stop quick again to wait for the computer, so very high torque on this drive system, very noisy.. The bigger, better tape drives used tape-buffering vacuum channels to allow slack between heads and hubs, and less hub movement.

[Paleoferrosaurus]

Agreed -- but in this case the tape drive is exceedingly well buffered with a very fast microcontroller grabbing the data and shipping it to the pdp-11. This machine has a bent capstan that causes a brief loss of tension on the tape every time it rotates 180 degrees; the take-up reel then "jerks" the tape, rotating the capstan back around the pulling tape through the read station at more than the expected rate. This results in frequent errors - forcing the drive to back up...

[peppoj]

I can't express how much i love old school tech :)

[OBSysteme]

@peppoj  Same here!

[MiracleKD18]

Is there any tape drive that would work with my 2.6 GHz Intel Celeron D PC? I use Windows XP.

And I'd like to use compact casettes.

LOL

[Paleoferrosaurus]

Sure -- they still make a variety of small streaming tape systems for PC's. Using the cassettes takes some of the fun out of it, though... eBay currently lists more than 1,800 items under "tape drive."

[TheIxtlan]

Its noisy, It need oil. Some clean the dammed drive. Thank you.

[ashthepokemonmaster]

wow that even louder than my reel to reel tape player where did you get it?

[6364gg2]

Could I possibly erase an 8 track for some tiny storage?

[Paleoferrosaurus]

Sure! Building the transport is left as an exercise for the reader!

[skaarj0]

Do you have any unix software for any qualstar drive? I have the original, but for msdos :((

[Paleoferrosaurus]

Not specifically for the Qualstar drive. mt seems to work (as does tar) under NetBSD for most of the SCSI streaming tapes.

[skaarj0]

I have the PERTEC version of qualstar. it's not SCSI. it's the ancestor of SCSI.

[Paleoferrosaurus]

Sorry. I misunderstood. No, I don't have any software that is specific to the Pertec interface.

[skaarj0]

Hey, I have software and drivers for the Qualstar 1052 tape drive but for MS-DOS. unfortunately it's PERTEC and not SCSI. it has a huge 16bit ISA controller card. I can't find any UNIX driver. for your tape drive, UNIX BSD works perfectly.

if you are interested in the software please PM me. I'll send you my website.

[shiakue666]

I have not been able to find much documentation on the drive I picked up, a Qualstar 1260s. So far, I know it has a scsi-I interface. It has centronics 50 pin female connectors. I have not connected it yet and am seeking advice on the best way to connect it to a modern pc and what type of tape driver program to use.

[Paleoferrosaurus]

Damn! They won't let me post a URL with the documentation for that tape drive. Let's just say a google search for the model name finds a couple of very relevant hits on the Qualstar website. It's a fairly new tape drive, so the documentation is still readilly available. As for software, consider one of the free unix variants: NetBSD, FreeBSD, and SCO Unix have pretty good built-in support for the 9-track tape drives.

[toborthegreat]

Hello Paleoferrosaurus: Thank you very much for help and advice. So basically the double disk drive system, the space will run out quickly. I think I will try another machine with a harddrive, but the machine should be a certain processor and be able to except the interface card? Thanks again for all your help. Victor

[Paleoferrosaurus]

The software you have access to will determine the specifications of the machine you use. I'm given to understand that the original software that shipped with the Qualstar (circa 1987) tape ran on an "AT" class machine (80286) under MS-DOS 3.? Best of luck with your project!

[toborthegreat]

Hello Paleoferrosaurus:

I just wanted to ask you a question. I have a couple of these machines, Qualstars 9 track reel to reels. I have an old IBM PC that is a double floppy drive system first one. I have the qualstar card and software. Would this machine run with my IBM PC? Is there any tip that you could give me? Basically I am doing this as a hobby of mine and to show other people how 9 track machines worked. Thanks for your help and posting this. Sincerely, Victor

[Paleoferrosaurus]

The short answer is "I don't know." If you're PC is the original IBM 5150 with the 8086 chip, 64k memory, and only (2) 140k or 360k disk drives (no hard drive), I'm not sure the Qualstar software is going to run. Even if it does run, you're going to fill up your disk storage pretty quick. Get a later machine with a reasonable hard drive and dedicate the system to data interchange. Best of luck!