General Automation Zebra!

[g-wright at att.net]

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Jay West" <jwest at classiccmp.org>
> In a prior life I owned a company that was a Pick dealer (Pick Systems, 
> Microdata, GA, Ultimate, etc.), so all kinds of interesting Pick-related 
> stuff still floats around the house and I rediscover things from time to 
> time. Today one has surfaced that I thought was lost forever. My father sold 
> his business recently and in cleaning out things he found a QIC cartridge 
> tape I had left there for safekeeping as an off-site backup many years ago.
> 
> It's a GA (General Automation) Zebra Pick OS Dealer Sysgen tape. This is a 
> tape that was only provided to GA dealers (for dealers to replace an 
> end-users lost or damaged boot tapes, or to sell with new systems {the 
> licensing was in the terminal ports, not the OS}). It was an Account-Save 
> format tape of an account called DEALER-SYSGEN. On that account was stored 
> the monitor and ABS sections for every different system GA made. A menu ran 
> when you logged on to the account and it asked you what system you wanted to 
> make an OS load tape for (1700, 1750, 2820, 3820, 3000, 3500, 5500, 7820, 
> 8830, etc.), and what tape media you want the tape created on (QIC or 1/2 
> mag tape). It then wrote a complete bootable tape with bootstrap, monitor, 
> abs, and files sections for any of those systems. What a find!!! Of course, 
> I haven't tried to read this tape, perhaps it's got some worthless datafile 
> backup from something else on it. But it still has the original GA Zebra 
> lable stating it's the dealer sysgen tape and the write protect is on.... so 
> I'm hopeful.
> 
> I happen to have a GA1750 and a GA2820 in my collection, so I'm thrilled to 
> know that I can make new boot tapes for them now. More importantly, I can 
> make boot tapes for any other GA Zebra system. Note that this tape is for 
> rev 3.8, which was the last non-R91 Pick GA produced (I wasn't a fan of R91, 
> so I'm really glad it's the pinnacle of the 3.8 train). I need to see if I 
> can find my manual patch sheets that bring it up to 3.8T1.
> 
> Anyways, if anyone has GA Zebra's in their collection and needs a new boot 
> tape I can help you out. Now I just need to find the DEALER.ASSY account for 
> 3.8 :)
> 
> Jay West
> 
> 
> 
> 


Hi Jay

My Zebra  says 2510 on the botton sticker if I remember correctly
has a 8" drive and a Qic Tape.  Still Boots pick OS. I have 
the same tape you have but did not know how to to use it. 
My machine model did not show up on the label of the tape either. 

Jerry

Jerry Wright
JLC inc.
g-wright at att.net