Mag Tapes was RE: Got Videotrax card working

[Steven N. Hirsch]

On Mon, 14 Mar 2005, Paul Koning wrote:

> >>>>> "Joe" == Joe R <rigdonj at cfl.rr.com> writes:
> 
>  Joe> At 11:14 PM 3/12/05 -0500, James Fogg wrote:
>  >>  Over the years I've learned to never trust tape of any kind.
> 
>  Joe> That's been my experience. I've never been able to get a tape
>  Joe> backup that worked. That includes brand new ones, DATs and
>  Joe> everything else. I know tapes have been a mainstay in the
>  Joe> computer field but I've had nothing but trouble with them.
> 
> My view is that there are PC class tapes and real tapes.  Real tapes
> include classic half inch reel, DLT, and presumably IBM' cartridges (I
> haven't used those).  The most obvious nasty example of PC class tapes
> are QIC cartridges.  DAT is similar -- those are miniature video
> tapes, forced into pretending to be data tapes.

Hmm.  When you condemn QIC cartridges, I hope this is restricted only to 
the smaller format media (as used by AST, Irwin and others long-departed).  
Certainly, the full-sized QIC media like DC6525, Magnus 1.0, etc. were 
routinely used for backing up and restoring "real" computers.  I never had 
any problems with the large cartridges, although you did have to be 
careful whose drive you used (Wangtek and Archive were exquisite pieces of 
crap; Tandberg seems to have been the "Gold Standard" for serious use and 
was OEM equipment for IBM, Sun, DEC and others.)

Steve