barryp
Experienced Member
$6 for shipping cost please (might have data on them)
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Two 60MB Emerald tapes
- Thread starter barryp
- Start date
Chuck(G)
25k Member
Any idea of what the "official" term for these are? DC-2000 or DC-2120?
Denniske1976
Experienced Member
Isn't 60MB QIC tape DC600A?
Chuck(G)
25k Member
Yeah, you're right--from the photo, the proportions didn't look right for a full-sized DC cart, but I guess my eyes are fooling me. I've cursed at too many of the darned things lately.
kgober
Veteran Member
DC2xxx tapes are the 'mini' cartridges (about 3" x 2") that were commonly used with PC tape drives that attached to the floppy controller.
Those look like full size QIC tapes (in the neighborhood of 6" x 4"), and the labelling indicates 600 foot tapes with a capacity of 60MB, which makes them DC600 presumably intended for use in a QIC24 tape drive. QIC24 drives could typically also use DC300 tapes (300', 30MB), DC300XL (450', 45MB) and DC600A/XL (1020', 100MB). There is also a DC600A tape cartridge (also 600') but it's unclear to me whether it's actually any different from DC600 aside from being "approved" for use in QIC120 tape drives where they can hold 120MB rather than 60MB (QIC120 drives writing 15 tracks rather than QIC24's 9 tracks).
-ken
Those look like full size QIC tapes (in the neighborhood of 6" x 4"), and the labelling indicates 600 foot tapes with a capacity of 60MB, which makes them DC600 presumably intended for use in a QIC24 tape drive. QIC24 drives could typically also use DC300 tapes (300', 30MB), DC300XL (450', 45MB) and DC600A/XL (1020', 100MB). There is also a DC600A tape cartridge (also 600') but it's unclear to me whether it's actually any different from DC600 aside from being "approved" for use in QIC120 tape drives where they can hold 120MB rather than 60MB (QIC120 drives writing 15 tracks rather than QIC24's 9 tracks).
-ken
barryp
Experienced Member
The only thing I can add is that they're ~6" by ~4" by ~½"
I'm just asking for shipping cost, if somebody knocks on my door they're free.
I'm just asking for shipping cost, if somebody knocks on my door they're free.
Chuck(G)
25k Member
The "DC" standards were pretty loose. In point of illustration, take the Adic 32-track format on DC-600 tapes. A Cipher 525 "floppy tape" drive wrote data not compatible with anything else, etc. There were also the "XL" carts; e.g. DC600XL--later christened the DC6150. Then there were the over-optimistic compression drives--you know, get more than 500MB on a DC6150, etc.
I've got lots of full-sized drives, from a 3M fixed-head (2 track) to the aforementioned Adic and a few SLT drives.
As far as physical size, I still have my Irwin drive and the DC-1000 mini-cartridges.
Doesn't mean that I don't hate the format and think it was a lousy idea. Strangely, DDS has proved to be a more durable medium--neither the drives nor the media seem to suffer the problems that the DC setup has.
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