[TUHS] Several QD-600A Tapes from Bell Labs Circa Early 90s

[Warner Losh]

It's gratifying to see the Viper 150 still works on FreeBSD, though I miss
the kkniwn rouge message since CAM has been in the system :).

On Wed, May 28, 2025, 2:03 PM Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:

> Be really careful.  The bands inside are extremely fragile.  Talk to me
> off list.  I have a 2 drives that are likely to be to can read them
> [Archive Viper 150], which I have spliced to a SCSI chain on a FreeBSD
> box.  Talk to me off list.
>
> Clem
>
> On Wed, May 28, 2025 at 3:58 PM segaloco via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:
>
>> Hello everyone, I'm just putting feelers out for a potential data recovery
>> project that may have some UNIX history nuggets hiding somewhere.  I just
>> closed
>> on this auction: https://www.ebay.com/itm/267254963191
>>
>> After the link is an action for a set of 17 Sony QD-600A tapes featuring
>> various
>> backups from at least one machine named Zeus.  The listing indicates they
>> were
>> property of a former Western Electric engineer.  At least one tape has a
>> label
>> indicating a full /usr backup.  My hope is that something downstream of
>> the BTL
>> internal version of System V might be living amongst these tapes, but
>> either way
>> I was wondering if anyone here with access to the correct tape drive
>> would be
>> willing to assist with ripping these tapes?  I can also start hunting
>> down a
>> drive but figured I'd ask around first.  I'm not currently spotting a
>> drive on
>> eBay but have a few other places I can ask around.
>>
>> Thanks for any input!
>>
>> - Matt G.
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/attachments/20250528/125b8385/attachment.htm>