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Preservation of Software that was distributed on Tape

Well that makes a lot of sense.
I have almost no experience using tape media, except setting up Veeam to archive Backups to modern LTO Tape Libraries (and tape management with veeam is a pain -.-)
The only experience with tape in my hobby has been Colorado QIC Tape with DOS and Windows for Workgroups 3.11 :D
It was fun though.
But to be honest... I would have also had a hard time finding software for tape archival that runs on DOS that can handle the DDS3 drive and stuff.
I'm no software developer and I'm really not good at coding.

I think developing your own controller to archive tape reels is really impressive. That shows a lot of dedication to preserving this data as well as that legacy.
Well we're all getting old and have good memories in the past.
But see it maybe this way:
It couldn't be a better time to pass on that knowledge to future generations so it won't get lost. :)
Here is an example:
About a year ago we found a Data General Nova 2 (the big one) including a 19" Hard drive and some Hard Drive Cartridges and 2 Terminals with it in a customers basement.
I kept that stuff, but it feels virtually impossible to figure out a way to start troubleshooting that machine.
 
Hi,
so apparently a guy called Keven on the MPE Forever discord pointed me to a tool called tapecopy
In ubuntu it is part of the hercules package (whoever thought of that name...)
Hercules is an IBM mainframe emulator.
If you are using a tape copy program from there, you will be creating tape images in AWSTAPE format.
 
oh thanks for clarifying
I already started to wonder what that's got to do with amazon web services ;) :D
 
For example, see my Pertec-interface controller design on GitHub. Produces SIMH-format image files directly and does streaming at 75 ips at 6250 fci.
I have a Fujitsu 9-track drive in my basement with a Pertec interface. I have a PC interface card from a company called Laguna from the 90's, I think. I'm interested to take a look at your design. Do you have the link handy?
 
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