[TUHS] reading 9 track tapes?

[TUHS] reading 9 track tapes?

[Aharon Robbins]

Hi.

Can anyone still read 9 track tapes? We just uncovered two that date
from my wife's time in grad school, circa 1989 - 1990.  They would
be tar tapes.

Thanks!

Arnold

[TUHS] reading 9 track tapes?

[Armando Stettner]

How about the computer museum in Mountain View or Paul Allen's computer museum (with many working antiques) in Seattle?

   aps

Sent from my iPad

> On May 11, 2015, at 01:20, Aharon Robbins <arnold at skeeve.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi.
> 
> Can anyone still read 9 track tapes? We just uncovered two that date
> from my wife's time in grad school, circa 1989 - 1990.  They would
> be tar tapes.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Arnold
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> 

[TUHS] reading 9 track tapes?

[asbesto]

Mon, May 11, 2015 at 11:20:40AM +0300, Aharon Robbins wrote:

> Can anyone still read 9 track tapes? We just uncovered two that date
> from my wife's time in grad school, circa 1989 - 1990.  They would
> be tar tapes.

we have a working setup for data recovery :)
we're in Sicilia, Italy!

;)

-- 
[ ::::::::: 73 de IW9HGS : http://freaknet.org/asbesto ::::::::::: ]
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[TUHS] reading 9 track tapes?

[Dave Horsfall]

On Thu, 21 May 2015, asbesto wrote:

> we have a working setup for data recovery :)
> we're in Sicilia, Italy!

Ahh, the home of the Cosa Nostra :-)

"Let us do a deal with you."

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)   "Those who don't understand security will suffer."
http://www.horsfall.org/spam.html (and check the home page whilst you're there)

[TUHS] reading 9 track tapes?

[asbesto]

Mon, May 11, 2015 at 12:35:41PM -0500, John Foust wrote:

> >    > Can anyone still read 9 track tapes? We just un-covered two that date

> >but the physical condition of the tapes; that old, they might have issues
> >with shedding of oxide, etc (which a heat soak can mostly cure). If you

> Oh, that tape may be just fine if it was kept in office conditions.

well, it's a matter of chemical bonds that broke; something in
the tape just change due to age, and sometimes a good stored
tape can be difficult to read, and need baking.  We're also able
to do that, we recovered a lot of media at our museum.

ps http://museum.freaknet.org (very old site, sorry)

-- 
[ ::::::::: 73 de IW9HGS : http://freaknet.org/asbesto ::::::::::: ]
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[TUHS] reading 9 track tapes?

[John Foust]

At 12:46 AM 5/12/2015, Noufal Ibrahim KV wrote:
>The Internet Archive[1] has a lot of hardware to extract information
>from old media though I don't know if all of it is available.

Yes, I'm sure they do - as does the Computer History Museum, or many
of the other computer museums, and a fair number of mailing-list houses,
as well as many collectors, all still have functioning 9-tracks.
There's a few on eBay at any given moment.

A few years ago I travelled to Bettendorf, Iowa, to drop off two failed
9-track drives I had.  A fellow there (http://www.comco-inc.com/) has 
one of the few - perhaps only? - remaining 9-track service and repair 
businesses.  At that time he was hoping to down-size and retire, and 
was dreaming of finding someone to take over the business.  It sounded 
like he had a bunch of 88780-class 9-tracks that would go to the 
scrapper.  At the time, he offered to sell me a working 88780-style 
drive for about $1800.

He said most people just want to read old tape data, not write
it, so he wished for a new method to be able to read 7- and 9-track
tapes just to recover data.  One can imagine a flexible read head,
a digitizer, and the rest is software.  Indeed, that's what a few
people have made as an experiment.  

There's still some equipment and processes that require a real drive 
and that do not work with tape emulators.  He said there's a company 
out there that makes a modern 7-track drive for the seismic end of 
the oil industry at $50K a pop.  He repaired and sold many 9914-style
drives because they handled a longer block length needed by some
oil industry applications.  Another remaining market was a few 
specific models of 9-track that work with old Alcatel phone switches.

- John

[TUHS] reading 9 track tapes?

[Noufal Ibrahim KV]

On Mon, May 11 2015, John Foust wrote:


[...]

> Oh, that tape may be just fine if it was kept in office conditions.
>
> Chuck Guzis is at http://sydex.com/ .  He'd do a fine job.
>
> There may be others at the Classic Computer Collector mailing list who
> could assist.

[...]

The Internet Archive[1] has a lot of hardware to extract information
from old media though I don't know if all of it is available.



Footnotes: 
[1]  http://archive.org

-- 
Cordially,
Noufal
http://nibrahim.net.in

[TUHS] reading 9 track tapes?

[John Foust]

At 12:18 PM 5/11/2015, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>    > From: Aharon Robbins
>
>    > Can anyone still read 9 track tapes? We just un-covered two that date
>    > from my wife's time in grad school, circa 1989 - 1990. They would be
>    > tar tapes.
>
>That old, the issue is not going to be the format (TAR is still grokkable),
>but the physical condition of the tapes; that old, they might have issues
>with shedding of oxide, etc (which a heat soak can mostly cure). If you
>really want them read, I would recommend a specialist in reading old tapes;
>it will cost, but if you really want the data... I have used Chuck Guzis, in
>Washington (state) in the US.

Oh, that tape may be just fine if it was kept in office conditions.

Chuck Guzis is at http://sydex.com/ .  He'd do a fine job.

There may be others at the Classic Computer Collector mailing
list who could assist.

- John

[TUHS] reading 9 track tapes?

[Noel Chiappa]

    > From: Aharon Robbins

    > Can anyone still read 9 track tapes? We just un-covered two that date
    > from my wife's time in grad school, circa 1989 - 1990. They would be
    > tar tapes.

That old, the issue is not going to be the format (TAR is still grokkable),
but the physical condition of the tapes; that old, they might have issues
with shedding of oxide, etc (which a heat soak can mostly cure). If you
really want them read, I would recommend a specialist in reading old tapes;
it will cost, but if you really want the data... I have used Chuck Guzis, in
Washington (state) in the US.

	Noel