[Info-vax] TK50 - this is annoying...

[Lee Gleason]

wrote in message news:00AC86C4.403C9455 at SendSpamHere.ORG...

In article <506f6212$0$11787$882e7ee2 at usenet-news.net>, "Lee Gleason" 
<lee.gleason at comcast.net> writes:
>>  I recall a VAX Magic session at a DECUS convention in the mid 80s or so,
>>where someone came up on stage, and, without saying a word of explanation,
>>set a TK50 tape drive down on the floor  and proceeded to smash it to 
>>pieces
>>with a middle sized hammer. He got a standing ovation. This memory came to
>>mind today, as I have a TK50 that unwound about a foot and a half off of
>>tape out of a middlin' irreplaceable tape, and then decided not to rewind
>>it.

>Wasn't that Jamie Hanrahan?  But I think it was an 8mm tape, not a TK50.

  Jamie didn't do the TK50 smash. He did rush out of the wings and grab the 
undamaged
drive sled from the victim TK50 drive, since they  were scarce, expensive, 
& useful for all sorts of other things.

  At a Magic Session (I'm almost certain that same one), Jamie did tell a 
story that, at that time,
the only way to get some types of 8mm cartridges to work on DEC 8mm drives 
was to use an
8mm camcorder to initialize them.  Perhaps that is what you are recalling.

--
Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR
Control-G Consultants
lee.gleason at comcast.net