James B. Byrne wrote:
>
> On 20 Nov 97 at 6:00, Larry Liska wrote:
>
> > Tape:
> > ======
> > 1) My system has a 9144 1/4" tape drive.  Where can I get tapes for
> > it? From what I read, it apparently wants special HP-formatted
> > tapes.  I called HP's 1-800 number and was discouraged when I heard
> > the price they were asking. 2) These tapes look like standard 1/4"
> > tapes.  Any way I can format a standaed QIC tape so that the drive
> > would like it?  Or, does anyone have spare tapes that they would be
> > willing to sell cheap?
>
> These may start out as standard QIC's but they are specially factory
> formatted.  On top of that you had to initialize each factory fresh
> tape prior to use.  As I recall this process took about 5 to 10
> minutes for each tape (it could have been 15 to 20 for that matter,
> it was a long time ago).

We use these tapes all the time.  The price is exhorbitant,
but it is the only game in town.  It is about $38 for a
150' tape (15MB) and $40 for a 600' tape (65MB).  As I
understand it, the tapes use the same driver as the CS-80
disks.  In order to do that, the tapes have a special
low-level format (and that is what $25 - $30 of that price
is for) which can only be put there by HP.  If you deGauss
the tape, and erase that format, it is useless in the HP
after that.

--

Buz         (:

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