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Just dug out: IBM ValuePoint system

N

NathanAllan

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 1, 2003
Messages
2,437
Location
Bellevue, Colorado
I've had this one for a while but never worked on it (yet). I'm planning on maxing out the ram and putting some sort of DVD drive in it-- I don't have any 120MB tapes for it, and CD's are just better to use if it will take it. I think the lock is jammed, the case is loose but it won't open.

I'll put up more pictures when I get her opened up, see what's lurking inside (hopefully not spiders).

http://picasaweb.google.com/nathan.dkassandra4/UntitledAlbum#5392325303503746146
 
I did see some new IBM tapes at the thrift store. Don't remember what excatly they were because I never used tapes before. I can go back and see if they are still there if you are interested.
 
Looks like a common Colorado drive, QIC-80. I have tons of those tapes (most or all with archived data).
 
I might get a couple of tapes, didn't know there were any out there. Jerk, see how much they are, really pinching pennies right now.

Unknown_K, one or two tapes with data on them seems pretty neat; just to look back and see what's on them (I used to look on floppies, you never know what you'll find!)

I have another tape drive, I think it's an Everex but it's in a full size metal case. I'll take some pics and post the up. The thing is built like a tank and weighs about 15 pounds! It came with a stack of tapes, might experiment with that.

Mostly I'm interested in this IBM. This is the only complte one I have now, the others got lost 'along the way' as it were. When I can figure out how to get the case open, it'll be even better.
 
QIC-80 was absolutely dreadful. Slow, you had to make a separate verification pass after you recorded your data (if it didn't pass, you started all over again).

We warned customers away from them, in preference to DDS, 8mm or DLT (and DDS was pretty bad) which have read-after-write built in, so if you get a tape error, it automatically corrects it.
 
Chuck(G) said:
QIC-80 was absolutely dreadful. Slow, you had to make a separate verification pass after you recorded your data (if it didn't pass, you started all over again).

We warned customers away from them, in preference to DDS, 8mm or DLT (and DDS was pretty bad) which have read-after-write built in, so if you get a tape error, it automatically corrects it.
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ugh. Sounds like I'll be replacing it with a cd-drive. Never really used any kind of tape drive personally, it's just in the machine. Having a CD sounds much better, or better yet a second hard drive-- then I will network it for network attached storage-- maybe linux, I have no idea.

Do these machines have any potential value? I'm not looking to sell, just would like to know before I break it all up or mod it in some way.
 
I did look for the tapes. There were 2 new ones in a box. The sticker was like 4.00

They were not IBM brand, but Maxwell or something. I believe they said they were for QIC 80.

. I'm assuming you don't want them if you are going to extract the tape drive. I would be willing to pick them up if anyone else is interested in them.
 
The original QIC-80 tapes seem real reliable to me. Tapes I made in the early 90's still work and so did the 100+ backup tapes a friend gave me that I restored (no data loss on any of them). The major issue with the drives is the pinch roller turning to goo, and a broken optical sensor that didnt detect the end of the tape during rewind (snapping the tape).

The larger QIC drives called TRAVAN were junk (have a few of them in the collection, a 3.2GB one I purchased new since DAT was too expensive at that time). The problem was the carts got huge and stuck out too far, ran very HOT when backing up, and were real slow (even with a compression card).

For a vintage 386/486 QIC drives are great for backups, media should still be around (new/used) and cheap.
 
Unknown_K said:
The larger QIC drives called TRAVAN were junk (have a few of them in the collection, a 3.2GB one I purchased new since DAT was too expensive at that time). The problem was the carts got huge and stuck out too far, ran very HOT when backing up, and were real slow (even with a compression card).
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The QIC-80 drives were inexpensive because they worked off the floppy controller ("floppy tape"). I've got a grandaddy of these somewhere--a Cipher 525 that uses DC-600A carts and has an 8" interface.

I would have placed Travan slightly above the QIC (DC-2000 style) carts. Some drives, such as the HP Travans, weren't bad at all.

Before I went to DDS, I used DC-600-style (DC-6150/6250) QIC-02 interface drives. They weren't too bad and I preferred them to the QIC-80 drives.

I did have an Irwin DC-1000 minicart drive and was surprised recently to be able to read every 20MB cart that I had recorded in 1986-88.

Colorado sold a pile of their "jumbo" drives (250MB). I've got one, but I've never used it.

So, does anyone use a Datasonix Pereos drive?

A lot of the DC-2000 media is starting to experience the bane of QIC carts--broken/slack tension belts. So if you find some used media, examine it carefully before using it. A tape with a broken tension belt can make a real mess.
 
NathanAllan said:
...Do these machines have any potential value? I'm not looking to sell, just would like to know before I break it all up or mod it in some way.
Click to expand...

The ValuePoints were the the bottom-end IBM systems when it was really trying to compete with the other PC manufacturers. One good feature is that the model/submodel codes are down to a science. By those 7 digits (63xx-xxx or 64xx-xxx for the ValuePoints) I will be able to tell you a great detail about the original configuration of the system.
 
I had several 250 MB drives of that kind and they always worked like a charm :confused::)
 
I'll qualify my statements about QIC-80, etc. by saying that our clients mostly worked for government and backups made were usually taken on-site and stored away later for evidence. Time was money and you didn't get a second shot at getting your data. The QIC-80, as well as Travan, as well as several other formats were completely unsuited to that use.

It's nice to see that you got good results with QIC-80. Our own testing in the field showed otherwise.
 
I should point out my backup tapes were one shot archives, most businesses rotate tapes for incremental backups and had some for permanent archives. So I have no idea if reusing QIC-80's will make then less reliable then other types of tapes.
 
You'll definitely need to let us know when you get that up and running.

Will admit to having rather a soft spot for that range of ValuePoint machines - not least because my first desktop machine was a PS/ValuePoint 433DX/Si. Back in 1999 33MHz, 24Mb of ram, 1Gb of harddrive space (which we later found to actually be 2.1Gb on the IBM DORS-32160 harddrive - Windows 95 was only seeing a gig of it!) seemed like rather a lot. Need to get around to rebuilding it at some point - still have the various parts, but they're scattered all over the place. The SCSI card is the only question mark...not the foggiest idea where that is! We inherited the system third or fourth hand, was a good machine though - despite the occasional memory parity errors it used to throw up on cold days...Never did get to the bottom of that.

valuepoint.jpg


...Really need to get a photo less than seven years old at some point...Miss the days of having a workstation that tidy though!
 
Zelandeth said:
valuepoint.jpg
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Heh, there's a small stock of a few of that case design at a charity a short distance from here (Computers for Kids, Windsor Ontario...they have a garage sale on the 3rd Saturday of each month). Plus the PS/Valuepoint monitors.

And...1999? Really? In 1999 that was outdated...at least I'm pretty sure it was. Weren't PIIs out by then?
 
kishy said:
And...1999? Really? In 1999 that was outdated...at least I'm pretty sure it was. Weren't PIIs out by then?
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Yes, but there was a lot of overlap in Intel CPU designs, the P55C was 97-98; and some of the (non Intel) SS7 CPUs were still being introduced in 2000. The P3 came out in 1999. The slot 1 P2 and P3 devices were physically awkward to design with (the big thing sticking up from the motherboard), so socket 7 kept going pretty well. it wasn't until Socket 370 P3 chips came out that there was no good reason to keep building Socket 7 boards.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Yes, but there was a lot of overlap in Intel CPU designs, the P55C was 97-98; and some of the (non Intel) SS7 CPUs were still being introduced in 2000. The P3 came out in 1999. The slot 1 P2 and P3 devices were physically awkward to design with (the big thing sticking up from the motherboard), so socket 7 kept going pretty well. it wasn't until Socket 370 P3 chips came out that there was no good reason to keep building Socket 7 boards.
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Well, true, Slot 1 did breath new life into Socket 7 with AMD releasing such things as the K6-2 and 3, which let you cheat by using a 2x multiplier as a 6x...cool stuff for sure.

I wasn't clear though, I was referring to the 33mhz machine described in Zelandeths post (which would be...Socket 3?)
 
kishy said:
I wasn't clear though, I was referring to the 33mhz machine described in Zelandeths post (which would be...Socket 3?)
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Sorry, my mind said 1999 = Socket 7. Good heavens, yes--486 was long obsolete by 1999. Probably found on some dedicated embedded apps then, but certainly not new desktops.
 
Yep, it was well, well outdated! Hence us being donated it for free. My family back then were in pretty dire a state financially, so were lucky to get that - it did what we needed though! Couple of years later my parents got hold of a more up to date machine and I inherited that for my own.

Obsolete? Yep, very. Did I care? Not in the slightest! Hence the fact that I still have it.
 
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