Replace roller rubber on HP 9825 tape drive

[Joe R.]

At 10:33 PM 7/6/05 -0700, you wrote:
>>> Well, I finally got around to attempting to re-spool this stupidly
>>> designed tape.
>
>On Thu, 7 Jul 2005, Tony Duell wrote:
>
>> By driving the outside of the tape spools at a constant speed
>> (that's what the belt and drive puck do), rather than turning the spools
>> themselves by their axles, that's exactly what you get.
>
>I agree with Tony. It's a brilliant design in fact.
>
>If the belts are dying at 1 to 5 years, OK, blame the
>manufacturer. But if we're talking about 10+ year old tapes,
>please -- replace them with new ones (tapes have a limited life)
>or accept that they are vintage and stop whining. You're using
>them well past their design life.

   I agreee but the problem is that a lot of us would like to recover the
original HP software from the tapes since a lot of it virtually never
appeared on anything but the tapes. In addition, the programs on tape could
be "protected" and could not be copied. I know companies that run their
entire operation off of such commercailly produced protected tapes and are
willing to pay ANYTHING to keep them working since a failed tape will put
them out of business.

    Joe