On Thu, 27 Feb 2020 at 03:49, Chuck Guzis via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > Hoo boy. I'll throw my experience in and see if you can avoid nausea... > > First of all, you don't need a special controller to run most floppytape > drives, nor do you need to give up a floppy drive to use them--they > don't use the usual drive/motor select control for access. It's > perfectly permissible to have 2 floppy drives and a tape drive on the > same cable.
I didn't know that last trinket of wisdom, but agreed to the rest. > While there were special "double-speed" controllers, such > as the Colorado FC-20, they're not necessary for functioning--they just > increase the data transfer rate. Seconded. > Second, be prepared to set up a legacy system with the OS that you used > back in the day. I think that NT 4.0 and maybe 2K still retained > floppytape support, but I don't believe that it went further than that. > If you used Windows 95 to do your backups, use that. Agreed. > Third, tape backup software tends to be unique to the generation of tape > drive and operating system. Agreed. > For example Colorado backup for DOS chokes > on Colorado backup for Windows 95 tapes. So locating a copy of ResQ may > be to your great advantage. Strongly seconded on that last bit. > If you can't find a copy, it may be possible to read the tape in "raw" > mode using an old version of NetBSD or even old Debian using the ftape > driver. You'll have to recompile the kernel to incorporate the driver > code, but then you'll have access to the tape contents using the usual > Unix tape commands (mt, dd, etc.) The good news is that almost every > floppytape that I've seen uses 512 byte blocks. > > All this assumes that various bits haven't turned to goo or gone slack > (e.g. tape drive capstans, cartridge tension belts, etc.). Kevin, where in the world are you? I have a Colorado parallel-port drive and install floppies and CDs for Win9x and NT. I could be induced to part with them, _pace_ Chuck's wise and insightful comments. -- Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053