IBM Tape Drives

[wrexroad]

I recently picked up an IBM 7207-001 and 3532-023 tape drive. I found the product announcement for the 3532-023 here: https://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/ShowDoc.wss?docURL=/common/ssi/rep_ca/5/897/ENUS191-085/index.html

It says that it requires a special SCSI cable (#2830, 31F4187). Does anyone know if there is anything special about this cable or is it just IBM saying to use IBM stuff?

 

[Chuck(G)]

My recollection is these drives were made by Tandberg for IBM, so they're basically Tandberg under the bezel.
I recall that they do take a special connector on the rear of the drive; i.e. not 50 pin 0.1" pitch SE.
This is all from memory, so my gray matter may be leaky.

 

[wrexroad]

They look like 50 pin Centronics connectors, but without the wire retaining clips. They are deeply recessed, I doubt anyone would be able to get their fingers in there for the retainers anyway. They also only have one connector which makes me think that they are internally terminated, but that document talks about being able to chain multiples together with their cable so maybe the cable has the terminator built in? I'm pretty new to working SCSI devices so I don't really know how the termination is supposed to work.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Okay, you're looking at the external boxes, not the internal drives themselves. I recall only the naked drives.

 

[wrexroad]

Yeah, sorry that wasn't clear! These are external drives.