Re: [TUHS] Someone wants to use an exabyte [ really bulk erasing ]

Re: [TUHS] Someone wants to use an exabyte [ really bulk erasing ]

[Norman Wilson]

I had a hand-held degausser, but lent it to someone years ago
and never got it back.

It was actually Exabyte that made me buy it.  I bought a new
8505 through a reseller to supersede the 8200 I was using for
home backups.  It turned out the 8505's firmware refused to
overwrite a tape already written at any but the highest density,
so I couldn't reuse any of my existing backup tapes.  Exabyte
insisted it was a feature, not a bug.  So I gave up and bought
a degausser so I could turn a used tape into a blank tape so
the damn tape drive would write on it.

For further vintage-computing amusement: I decided to buy at
that time because the reseller had arranged a deal with Exabyte:
trade in any old tape drive, working or not, and get a couple of
hundred bucks off on a brand-new 8505.  So I gave the reseller
an old, broken TK05 I had lying around.  My sales contact for
the reseller was a former service tech at the same company, so
I figured (correctly) he'd get the joke.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

Re: [TUHS] Someone wants to use an exabyte [ really bulk erasing ]

[Al Kossow]

The radio shack 43-232's will take care of things, they just have limited duty-cycles
There are lots on eBay

Sometimes the pro ones for 1/2" tape show up that are about 12" square with a timer
I have one, but I've looked at the analog output of a 1/2" tape drive after a pass with
the RS, and there isn't much left.


On 11/25/19 7:25 AM, Clem Cole wrote:
> Somewhere in the basement, I have tape eraser that was recommended by one of my brothers

Re: [TUHS] Someone wants to use an exabyte [ really bulk erasing ]

[Clem Cole]

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Somewhere in the basement, I have tape eraser that was recommended by one
of my brothers (who ran KHOU's Sports department for 30 years and it was a
piece of gear they used all the time for professional video tapes). I
haven't used it much, but I have used it for 9-tracks and seems to have
worked.  FWIW: I got it here at a (in)famous local electronics place near
MIT (Eli Hefferon and Sons - 'A Nerdi Knight Holy Place')  I must have
gotten it in the early/mid 1980s for about $75, I remember it was much more
expensive than the Radio Shack thing - but my bro said it really worked.
 At the time I was doing some consulting for a NYC law firm and I had to
document to the courts that all the data I had been delivered was properly
destroyed.   They were satisfied and never heard anything more about it.

It seems to have erased everything have had near it when it on.  In fact, I
was always a little worried that it will erase unintended stuff too when I
use it.  It hums and vibrates on the table and you are supposed to move the
tape horizontal to it and make circular motions over it.  I had taken my
watch and wedding ring off the first time I ever tried it and it moved my
watch from a table about 3 feet away. I was pretty impressed.

On Sun, Nov 24, 2019 at 10:59 PM William Pechter <pechter@gmail.com> wrote:

> I was successful with a Radio Shack VHS tape eraser on floppy disks.
> Should handle 8mm and DDS as well as VHS.  No guarantee of the quality of
> the wipe as far as data recovery on the tapes because I never had a drive
> working long enough to test at home.  Got DDS2 and exabyte jukeboxes but
> the drives crapped out.
>
> Bill
>
> William Pechter
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* TUHS <tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org> on behalf of Jon Steinhart <
> jon@fourwinds.com>
> *Sent:* Sunday, November 24, 2019 10:34:05 PM
> *To:* The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs@tuhs.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [TUHS] Someone wants to use an exabyte [ really bulk
> erasing ]
>
> Dave Horsfall writes:
> > On Mon, 25 Nov 2019, George Michaelson wrote:
> >
> > > I just failed with a Sun DAT drive. Cable and card bought online,
> > > recognized by the mt command, but all it does is eject tapes.
> >
> > They're worse than 9-track tapes, and that's saying something :-)
> >
> > Oh, if you must use one, make sure to use data-quality tapes, not the
> > cheaper media.
> >
> > -- Dave
>
> I have several generations of these too.  I also have several crates of
> 9-track tapes, QIC-24 tapes, QIC-150 tapes, and various generations of
> DDS DAT tapes.  I don't think that I have anything worth keeping on these
> as I've transfered worthwhile stuff to newer media over time.  Hard to
> believe that the entire contents of a 9-track tape fit in a negligible
> amount of memory these days.
>
> The thing that's kept me from getting these out of my basement is that
> I'd prefer to erase them first, just in case.  Does anybody have experience
> with a decent bulk tape eraser?
>
> Jon
>

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Re: [TUHS] Someone wants to use an exabyte [ really bulk erasing ]

[Dave Horsfall]

On Sun, 24 Nov 2019, Jon Steinhart wrote:

> The thing that's kept me from getting these out of my basement is that 
> I'd prefer to erase them first, just in case.  Does anybody have 
> experience with a decent bulk tape eraser?

I had a bunch of tapes (some strange type for an early "home computer" 
belonging to my deceased father) that my brother wanted to bulk-erase, as 
they contained my father's business details etc.

Now, it transpired that one of my clients at the time happened to be a 
certain department of the police, that specialised in, err, phone-tapping 
in real time i.e. a known drug-dealer would use the phone, an alarm would 
go off, and away went the tape recorders (both cassette and mag) along 
with humans listening in.  I'm afraid that I can't say much more than 
that...

Anyway, into their bulk eraser went the tapes, and out came blanks.  This 
was confirmed when said brother decided to read a tape, and found that he 
couldn't :-)

So, if you happen to know someone in that area...

-- Dave

Re: [TUHS] Someone wants to use an exabyte [ really bulk erasing ]

[William Pechter]

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I was successful with a Radio Shack VHS tape eraser on floppy disks.  Should handle 8mm and DDS as well as VHS.  No guarantee of the quality of the wipe as far as data recovery on the tapes because I never had a drive working long enough to test at home.  Got DDS2 and exabyte jukeboxes but the drives crapped out.

Bill

William Pechter

________________________________
From: TUHS <tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org> on behalf of Jon Steinhart <jon@fourwinds.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 24, 2019 10:34:05 PM
To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Someone wants to use an exabyte [ really bulk erasing ]

Dave Horsfall writes:
> On Mon, 25 Nov 2019, George Michaelson wrote:
>
> > I just failed with a Sun DAT drive. Cable and card bought online,
> > recognized by the mt command, but all it does is eject tapes.
>
> They're worse than 9-track tapes, and that's saying something :-)
>
> Oh, if you must use one, make sure to use data-quality tapes, not the
> cheaper media.
>
> -- Dave

I have several generations of these too.  I also have several crates of
9-track tapes, QIC-24 tapes, QIC-150 tapes, and various generations of
DDS DAT tapes.  I don't think that I have anything worth keeping on these
as I've transfered worthwhile stuff to newer media over time.  Hard to
believe that the entire contents of a 9-track tape fit in a negligible
amount of memory these days.

The thing that's kept me from getting these out of my basement is that
I'd prefer to erase them first, just in case.  Does anybody have experience
with a decent bulk tape eraser?

Jon

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Re: [TUHS] Someone wants to use an exabyte [ really bulk erasing ]

[Jon Steinhart]

Dave Horsfall writes:
> On Mon, 25 Nov 2019, George Michaelson wrote:
>
> > I just failed with a Sun DAT drive. Cable and card bought online, 
> > recognized by the mt command, but all it does is eject tapes.
>
> They're worse than 9-track tapes, and that's saying something :-)
>
> Oh, if you must use one, make sure to use data-quality tapes, not the 
> cheaper media.
>
> -- Dave

I have several generations of these too.  I also have several crates of
9-track tapes, QIC-24 tapes, QIC-150 tapes, and various generations of
DDS DAT tapes.  I don't think that I have anything worth keeping on these
as I've transfered worthwhile stuff to newer media over time.  Hard to
believe that the entire contents of a 9-track tape fit in a negligible
amount of memory these days.

The thing that's kept me from getting these out of my basement is that
I'd prefer to erase them first, just in case.  Does anybody have experience
with a decent bulk tape eraser?

Jon