[TUHS] Old Unix tapes from University of Nottingham

[segaloco via TUHS]

On Thursday, April 16th, 2026 at 15:22, Al Kossow via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:

> On 4/16/26 3:07 PM, Matt Day wrote:
> > I haven't tried them yet, but Howard Atherton at Apex Technology in Sandbach, Cheshire, UK claims to have had some success at recovering
> > from QIC:
> > https://disktransfer.co.uk/tape.php <https://disktransfer.co.uk/tape.php>
> >
> 
> I would REALLY be interested in what they would quote you to do this.
> 
> Len Shustek mentioned in the Unix V4 recovery video he paid $1000 for a 1/2" tape recovery
> that was inferior to the one we did of the same tape.
> 
> 
> I would REALLY be interested in what they would charge to do this.
> 
> Len Shustek mentioned in the Unix V4 recovery video he paid $1000 for a 1/2" tape recovery
> that was inferior to the one we did of the same tape.
> 
> 

Moving to COFF re: QIC tapes.  I still have that box of 17 QIC from BTL from the early 90s.  I recently got a real cheap QIC drive (wrong size, mini) but mostly to just play with the read head, see how it responds to manual transport of the tape over the head.  If that works out all fine and good, given how stupid QIC backup is currently, vs the mountain of tapes out there in the world...it seems like there might be a need for a modified piece of hardware to just pull the reels out of the cartridge entirely and let something else do the transport.  Granted I'm still kinda green in this area, but I snagged a 7-track Kennedy read-write unit I'm also experimenting with.  I'm hoping between the two of them I might be able to fashion something that'll pass the tape over the head properly.  There's still the matter of serpentine reading on a single track head, but the hacky solution may just be track at a time, read, tick the head up to the next track with a knob or lever, read, wash rinse repeat.

Broaching the topic as discussions over time have me convinced a good QIC recovery solution is pretty direly needed.  I want to contribute what I can to that effort.

- Matt G.