DECassette questions

[Paul Koning]

>>>>> "Joe" == Joe R <rigdonj at cfl.rr.com> writes:

 Joe> I picked one of these up a while back and stumbled across it
 Joe> yesterday.  It's a model TU80 IIRC. Does anyone have
 Joe> anyexperience with them? I've never seen or heard of one in
 Joe> actual use but I know it's supposed to be useable on the PDP-8
 Joe> so I may try to hand it on my -8 if they're any good (and I can
 Joe> find the right interface card).  What kind of cassette tapes do
 Joe> they use and how hard are they to find and format?

It wouldn't be a TU80, that's a half inch 9 track streaming tape drive
(predecessor of the TU81/TA81).  Its controller speaks the TS11
programming interface (ugh).

What you describe sounds like a TA11.  That's probably really the
controller name; I'm not sure what the drive is called.  The 1976
PDP-11 peripherals handbook lists the TA11 (it's on Bitsavers).  

The description says that it uses "proprietary DEC Philips-type
cassettes".  What that proprietariness consists of is not clear; it
may mean that is has digital tape (square loop) as opposed to audio
tape in the cassette.  Quite possibly a plain old audio cassette may
work (ferrite type -- but if that fails then chrome tape might be
worth trying).

      paul