2 Nov
2025
2 Nov
'25
11:06 a.m.
On Nov 1, 2025, at 8:07 PM, Michael Thompson via
cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Maybe Dave’s setup would work best because the reading software would not need to be
concerned with the format of the tape data.
> On Nov 1, 2025, at 4:08 PM, David Gesswein via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
>
> Looks like you have closer options. If they get too many read errors I have a
> setup which digitizes analog signals and processes them which may be able
> to recover tapes. I'm in MD.
Is Dave's setup a DECtape drive, with 10 tracks on 3/4 inch width?
Analog capture would be a great option for old tapes. It's likely there will be tapes
that don't read cleanly with standard controllers, but could be recovered with analog
capture and good DSP.
And yes, it would of course deal with odd formats. Then again, reading PDP-10 tapes on a
PDP-11 is easy; RT-11 has a standard utility that does this, using the controller's
standard "read all" command. I'm not sure how a PDP-8 would cope, given
that the standard PDP-8 blocksize is quite different.
One thing an analog capture system would do that DECtapes would have trouble with is
reading LINCtape, because RALL assumes (I believe) standard DECtape mark track codes and
LINCtape has an entirely different mark track.
paul