>From: Eric Smith <eric@brouhaha.com>

>Is the TU16 different than a TE16?  I have a bunch of TE16 drives (with
>TM03 Massbus formatters) that I haven't yet used.

I've been wondering the same thing, they seem to have the same Massbus ID.
I suspect that the difference is TM02 vs. TM03.

>Several people have
>told me that they were pretty decent drives.

We had one on the 11/780 at one of my old jobs and I remember liking it OK.
But, it was on a service contract so if it did ever break, it was Someone
Else's Problem.  One nice change would have been the pop-out style hub
latch like the TU80 etc. have, people kept forgetting to close the rat-trap
latch when they removed a tape and the door got all scratched up from
closing on it.

>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.

I've never even tried to wire up a TU45 and run it, but what impressed me
from poking around the one I had was, simply unlatching it and swinging
the transport out, was enough to bend the hinges so you can't get it to
swing back *in*.

My favorite drive so far is the TU80 (a.k.a. CDC Keystone?).  It's dumb,
it's slow, but there's just nothing to go wrong!  No vacuum, no supposed
autothreader (TU77 MUST DIE!), and a nice straight tape path.  And since it
lies flat, gravity isn't fighting you while you're threading it and trying
to get the tape to "catch" on the takeup reel for the first time.

John Wilson
D Bit