John Painter wrote:
 
>It has come to my attention through one of my customers that there is
>currently a worldwide shortage of 120 DDS tapes-- the type needed for
>the latest DDS-2 dat drives.  I searched high and low for these tapes on
>behalf of my customer, and every one of my distributors (wholesalers)
>had many many thousands of backorders.  The scuttlebutt says that there
>is only one or two manufacturers of these tapes and that they have not
>been able to meet the demand for the many new DDS-2 drives being sold.
 
I can confirm the big-time backorder thing:   I ordered
11 boxes = 55 of these little suckers from GTSI last
**July** I believe it was.........
 
Anyway, my order was just delivered a few weeks ago,
in April 96;  after I got into the loop and appropriately
harrased the vendor (who did I believe try pretty hard
for a long time before being able to lay hands on the
boxes that I finally got).
 
These 55 tapes are now in my possession...... Behind
our guarded Station outer perimeter;  behind internal
access controls to our building;  and then behind
security doors to our office / computer areas......
 
....  So what am I bid for some of these tapes  ??....   ;-)
 
Ken Sletten