On 16 Sep 96 at 19:38, Fletcher Christian wrote:

> About the HP tapes. Does anyone know what the story is?? Are the mechanisms
> the same as standard QIC02 1/4" drives (ie are they only formated diferently) or  
> are ther actual hardware differences? Does anyone know if it's possible to format
> standard 1/4" cartridges to allow them to work in place of the rare HP ones?

The HP tapes for the 9144 and 9145 have a special HP format, you have to 
buy them pre-formatted.  The drive itself is supposedly incapable of 
performing the formatting task.  Perhaps someone else on the list has 
the actual format info - my book seems to have disappeared, again!!
But the 9144 is a 16 track and the 9145 is 32 track.  The 9145 *will* 
read a tape from a 9144 but not vice versa.

Vince.
=============================================================
Vince Vielhaber    EMC Department    vevielhaber@chrysler.com