On 19 Apr 2000, Eric Smith wrote:

> > > I think somehow the earlier manual drives were better in this 
> > > regard, though had other short-comings.  We had TU16's on a PDP-11
> > > where I worked and the 'TU' part of the name became 'Totally Useless'.
> > 
> > The TU16 isn't *that* bad, try a TU45...
> 
> Is the TU16 different than a TE16?  I have a bunch of TE16 drives (with
> TM03 Massbus formatters) that I haven't yet used.  Several people have
> told me that they were pretty decent drives.

No, TU16 and TE16 look and feel the same. I really don't remember why
there were two designations.

> We had a TU45 on the 11/750 (later replaced by an 8650) at the university,
> and I don't recall ever having trouble with it, but OTOH I wasn't the one
> who had to maintain it.

Just threading the darned thing nearly killed me. :-)

But anyway, really, I haven't found any big trouble with any 1/2" TU
drives. I've had one regulator break on a TU78, one TM03 break on a TU77,
and that's about it. I still have one TU10 for my PDP-8, but haven't used
it in quite a while. That one is probably my most problematic drive, but
then again, I don't have any manuals for it.
I've used TU16s, but not that much...

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt@update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol