Date   : Mon, 03 Oct 2005 08:42:21 +0100
From   : Rob <robert@...>
Subject: Re: MDFS Tapes

This is almost certainly one of the rubber drive rollers decomposing due to 
age.  It crops up an awful lot on the classiccmp.org mailing lists.  You 
might want to scan the archives there for solutions. 
http://www.classiccmp.org/lists.html

The other drive you mentioned, with a edge connector, might be one of the 
older drives that has a dedicated (ISA) controller card.  These connect via 
ribbon, and unfortunately often get separated..   Stick with the SCSI ones..

Rob

At 14:36 02/10/2005, Ian Wolstenholme wrote:

>I am trying to get an "authentic" tape system going, it looks as if
>I have all the bits now and it is the only part of my MDFS system which
>is missing.
>
>I remembered earlier that my other MDFS also has a tape drive which
>I hadn't tried so I gave it a go.  However this was the beginning of a
>disaster which began to unfold when the tape stopped autoloading
>suddenly.  I ejected the tape to find that it was covered in 'orrible
>brown goo like melted chocolate.  I thought at first that the drive had
>melted the tape but the tape was intact, just covered in goo.
>
>After a while spent rearranging the house so I could get at the drive
>and take it to bits, I found that there was a thick coating of goo all
>around the central winding mechanism.  I don't know what it is but
>there is no drive belt in this drive so maybe it has disintegrated into
>goo over the years.
>
>Has anybody come across this before?
>
>It's a shame because while the tape was winding it was able to print
>some information and gave me a tape size reading of about 38MB which
>is more than I got with the first drive.
>
>Best wishes,
>
>
>Ian
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Phil Blundell
>To:  Ian Wolstenholme <BBCMailingList@...>
>Cc:  bbc-micro@...
>Sent: Sun, 02 Oct 2005 12:04:15 +0100
>Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] MDFS Tapes
>
>On Sun, 2005-10-02 at 11:13 +0100, Ian Wolstenholme wrote:
> > I have another tape drive which will fit the tapes but it has a 34-way
> > connection like a 5.25" drive and not a SCSI connector.  Can this be
> > converted for use with the MDFS?
>
>Probably not, or at least not easily.  This sounds like a "floppy tape"
>drive: i.e. a low-cost tape drive that connects to a floppy disk
>controller and has virtually no onboard intelligence of its own.  These
>were quite popular for a while in the early 1990s.
>
>The MDFS needs a drive that responds to the SCSI direct-access command
>set (i.e. the same as a hard disk).  Most SCSI tapes are
>sequential-access devices and will not work.
>
>Of course, it would be possible to construct an interface unit that
>appeared to the MDFS as a direct-access device, and translated those
>commands into the appropriate thing for any tape drive you cared to use.
>But this would be a relatively complex device.
>
>If you're just looking for a way to back up your MDFS, rather than an
>authentic tape arrangement, it's possible that an extra hard disk
>configured at ID 4 would look similar enough to a tape that the MDFS
>would be happy with it.  Or, of course, you could back up your files
>over the network, though I guess that might be unfeasibly slow.
>
>p.