you want a tape-only qbus-scsi controller? i got one in pittsburgh
gathering dust. 
i am terribly slow at sending things out to people though... some of you
(i apologize!) are still waiting for various bits of hardware (i havent
forgotten!)
all in all, though, tape just sucks. properly stored, they have decent
shelf life, and store more bits per cubic foot than anything else.. but
the closer they get to a tape drive, the less reliable they tend to be :-)

Isildur

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004, emanuel stiebler wrote:

> Robertdkeys@aol.com wrote:
> 
> > Then the tapes started to just crumble and dust all over
> > the drive.  At that point it was obvious the tapes were in a state
> > of decomposition.  So much for TK50.....(:+{{.....
> 
> :(
> 
> > The HD controllers I have don't support tape, unless I can find
> > an eprom update for one of them.  The other does not at all.
> > So... off to find a tape card.....of some sort.....
> 
> But they are not THAT expensive, even on ebay. Nobody is looking for
> a tape only controller, so that's probably your chance ;-)
> 
> > I have all the tapes backed up, and clone boot drives till I am
> > blue in the face.  But, it still would be nice to be able to boot
> > tape, in an emergency.  I am sensing that tapes are going
> > the way of the dodo bird, at least in TK50 land.
> 
> How were they stored ? Didn't here such bad stories about the tk50 until 
> now ...
> 
> Still have some 9-tracks I wrote in the '70 ...
> 
> 
> 
> 
>