DG 800/1200 questions

[Tony Duell]

> >>2) I have quite a number (maybe around six or seven) of rackmount 
> >> dual cassette tape units for these machines. I seem to recall that 
> >> they use cassette tapes that are not identical to the standard 
> >> common audio cassettes available today. Is anyone aware of where 
> >> these special tapes can be purchased new?
> 
> If they are identical to the ones I'm thinking of, they have a notch
> at the back. This notch of off-center. It enables you to test whether
> your are accessing side A or side B.
> I've used them extensively in Philips equipment, but they were also
> used by Facit and others.
> The capacity is 250k bytes per side, and the format is called ECMA34

While EGMA34 was a very common format for such cassettes, it was not the 
only one (AFAIK). I am sure I have sene at least one tape drive that uses 
such cassetes and uses at totally different format. The notch may well be 
used to ensure the cassette can only be fitted one way round with soem 
formats -- which use the entire width of the tape in one go.

But alas I have no idea where you'd get the casssettes now.

-tony