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

[Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com>]

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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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