IBM 9348 9-track tape drive

[Vintage Computer Festival]

On Fri, 17 Jun 2005, Doc Shipley wrote:

> Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
> > Does anyone have the service manual for the IBM 9348 9-track tape drive?
> > I'm trying to find out why mine is failing diagnostic test #1 (error code
> > 6).
>
> <AOL>
>    Me too!
> </AOL>
>
>    Seriously, Sellam, you might try some of the retailers who still sell
> them at >$1k/ea.  I looked around last year and didn't find squat, but
> then I only tried a couple of dealers.
>
>    Mine's not failing diags, it just can't the BOT mark on a known good
> tape.
>
>    It's a 9348-012, by the way.  I expect you already know this, but in
> IBM-world, the -012 suffix may be important, for example whether it's SE
> or differential.

Thanks for the info.  I've had this for several months now and have a
recent need to read/write 9-track tapes.  So it finally got dug out from
under a pile of crap and I decided to give it a whirl, since the
top-loading Ciphers I have are currently MIA.

I set it up, powered it up, it came up to ready, so far so good.  I
inserted a tape and hit load and it worked like a champ.  So last night I
was attempting the next phase which was hooking it to a PC.  The Adaptec
controller didn't see it on the SCSI chain.  I began fiddling with the
diagnostics and found the ID configuration option.  It's currently set at
ID 0 and I can't change it (I get the "Illegal" response any time I try
to change it).

I googled about and found some scant information that diagnostic test 1
should be run, so when I did it comes back as a faiulre.

I have no idea if this is supposed to be working or not, but it apparently
seems to have a problem of some sort, the least of which is that it's not
being recognized on the SCSI chain (though I haven't yet tested the SCSI
adapter with another known good device to see if maybe the SCSI card is
faulty).

A service manual would be ideal ;)

-- 

Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger                http://www.vintage.org

[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers   ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com  || at http://marketplace.vintage.org  ]