Date   : Wed, 20 Dec 2006 11:51:07 +0000
From   : adsb@... (Andrew Benham)
Subject: Digital Services Digistore Tape Drive

Ian Wolstenholme wrote:
> Does anybody have any information about this item?
> Visually it's very similar to the Acorn Winchester disc,
> same size and colouring with a 1MHz bus connector
> at the back and a fan and a black metal front plate
> with the tape drive accessible from there.
> 
> It takes very chunky DC600A tapes, these are the
> biggest tapes I have ever seen at 6 inches across!

Almost certainly it's a SCSI tape drive.  DC600 drives
were popular many years ago - I recall they could store
something in the region of 100MB on the tapes.

Ah, there's some info at:
http://www.linux-tutorial.info/modules.php?name=Tutorial&pageid=129

> The unit seems to work, it powers up OK to all 
> intents and purposes and will rewind a tape if you 
> wind it on a bit before inserting, but I can't get
> the Beeb to recognise it.

There's a set of SCSI commands for use with tape units,
I have the details =somewhere=.  I doubt if ADFS will touch
the tape drive - you'd need some other software.

It might be useful for backing a BBC hard drive onto tape,
but it will be an old unit and may not be reliable.
( To use one of my favourite quotes, you don't have a
backup strategy until you've proved you can restore from it ).


-- 
Andrew Benham         adsb@...       
Southgate, London N14, United Kingdom

The gates in my computer are AND OR and NOT, not "Bill"