VOGONS


First post, by Miphee

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I have zero experience with old external drives so I need your help.
I bought an IBM 7207-00 external tape drive and the interface is unfamiliar to me.
What interface card, cable and data cassette do I need? Is it compatible with standard PCs at all?

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Reply 1 of 31, by Horun

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I thought all IBM 7207 models were SCSI but the back connector looks odd like it missing the clip parts. Should be standard 50pin SCSI Centronixc compatible AFAIK

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 2 of 31, by wiretap

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It's a SCSI connection. You need a SCSI card in your PC if you don't already have one. You need a 50-pin SCSI A-type (Centronics) cable. The other end of the cable will be a DB25 to attach to an ISA SCSI card. The little rotary switch above the 50-pin on the back there sets your SCSI ID.

As far as the tape itself, it takes a 150MB IBM QIC 1/4" tape.

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Reply 3 of 31, by Miphee

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Thanks a lot! So I need a SCSI-1 controller and a cable like these?

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Reply 5 of 31, by Miphee

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Super. Here is an external CD-RW drive with the same interface. But why are there 2 connectors? Do I need to attach something else to make it work?

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Reply 7 of 31, by weedeewee

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don't forget the T-1000... aka Terminator .

Right to repair is fundamental. You own it, you're allowed to fix it.
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https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Serial_port

Reply 8 of 31, by Miphee

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This guy?

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Reply 10 of 31, by weedeewee

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yes, such a guy, though the cdrom says it's already terminated inside, so unless you undo that, you'll have to place it at the end of the scsi chain.

kinda makes me wonder how the tape is configured.

Right to repair is fundamental. You own it, you're allowed to fix it.
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Do not ask Why !
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Serial_port

Reply 12 of 31, by wiretap

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You need drivers for at least the SCSI card. Not sure about the drives themselves. Windows should see one as a tape drive and the other as a CD-ROM. But, I don't know about tape drive support in Win95. If it doesn't, WinNT would probably be a better bet.

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Reply 14 of 31, by weedeewee

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You'll need software to use the tape drive in any meaningful way when used in windows.
Linux would be a bit easier.

Right to repair is fundamental. You own it, you're allowed to fix it.
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Do not ask Why !
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Serial_port

Reply 16 of 31, by Horun

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Miphee wrote on 2021-05-16, 21:44:

I'll have to buy the adapter, cable and cartridge first so we'll get back to this when that happens. 😁

I will dig thru my software archives over the next week or so. Have some tape backup software that I used with a SCSI Travan 400Mb tape drive years ago, it might work with that IBM SCSI tape drive.
It did support nearly all scsi tape drives from early-mid 1990's IIRC

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 17 of 31, by BitWrangler

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So anyone who has never used a tape drive before, be aware they take hours to do anything. Write a backup, hours, verify the backup, hours, restore the backup, hours. it's not so much get a coffee time, as go out to the movies, sit around in a coffee shop talking about the movie for a while after, then go home see if it finished. Best you kick them off at bedtime really and use a prog that doesn't need confirmation to run the verify right after so you know it worked. Also I would not recommend messing with drives and tapes in questionable states of repair, you prolly gotta invest a week of free time in finding out whether the darned things are working right or not, then another couple fixing and tweaking until they do. Maybe worth the screwing around if you've got given the 1996 nightly backup of a software house on some weird tape format, or other archivist type endeavors, but for kicks and giggles, they will kick your ass black and blue, and the most likely giggles are after the inevitable descent to insensible hilarity when you finally lose it. (If you ever wondered why oldskool sysops seemed a bit hair trigger twitchy, now you know)

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 18 of 31, by chinny22

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Yeh I don't miss tape.
Usually backup speed wasn't an issue. It would just kick off during the night and 9 times out of 10 be finished in the morning. but that 10th time when it ran overtime for some reason or worse not at all due to a tape error, towards the end it was getting tricky to get a job done within a reasonable time window though.

And thank god I never had to do a full server restore, just files people had deleted by mistake, which is their own dumb fault so it takes as long as it takes be more careful next time!

Still "changing the tapes" got you 5 minutes to yourself in the sever room. Perfect time for that personal phone call out of earshot 😉

Reply 19 of 31, by Woody72

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I've just installed an HP SCSI DAT drive in my Windows 98 PC. I didn't need any drivers for the tape drive, Windows just knew what it was when I booted back up. If you install Adaptec SCSI Deluxe, it has a tape backup tool built in. Windows 98 also has a built in tape backup programme. I've tested both and they work perfectly.

Modern PC: i7-9700KF, 16GB memory, RTX 3060. Proper PC: Pentium 200 MMX, 128MB EDO memory, GeForce2 MX(200).