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  2. MIDRANGE-L
  3. May 2021

RE: Floppy drives on ancient AS/400's

A trip down memory lane today. Those diskette drives even had, for some forgotten reason, an output queue assigned to them. Once I discovered that, I always set my default outq to QDKT. I never had to worry about somebody accidentally printing something I wanted to keep. 😊

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Mark Waterbury
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2021 11:25 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Floppy drives on ancient AS/400's

The IBM System/38 used the same bus and tag cables to connect to the I/O devices it used ... many were the same DASD and tape drives used by e.g. the 43xx line of mainframe products at that time.
The AS/400s with the SPD bus had an optional IOP/IOA that would allow you to attach any mainframe style "bus and tag" I/O devices, usually large (vaccuum column) tape drives ... I recall one customer had a nice big Memorex tape drive attached to their AS/400s in this manner.

On Friday, May 21, 2021, 02:20:05 PM EDT, Rob Berendt <rob@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

That sounds like the right number.

Rob Berendt
--
IBM Certified System Administrator - IBM i 6.1 Group Dekko Dept 1600 Mail to: 7310 Innovation Blvd, Suite 104
Ft. Wayne, IN 46818
Ship to: 7310 Innovation Blvd, Dock 9C
Ft. Wayne, IN 46818
http://www.dekko.com


-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Jeff Crosby
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2021 2:07 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Floppy drives on ancient AS/400's

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.


Once upon a time we had a 2440 tape drive. It was mounted in the rack and
stuck out the front if I recall. I've googled, but not found a picture yet.

On Fri, May 21, 2021 at 2:00 PM Rob Berendt <rob@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I think ours was 4U and you could slide it out when it was working. It
had a clear top and after you slid the reel in it was fun to watch it try
to autoload the free floating end on to the take up reel.

IBM did have this huge 3phase vertical tape drive for the AS/400. We even
rewired the computer room to 3 phase to get ready for it but we never got
it. Was that the 3490?

Rob Berendt
--
IBM Certified System Administrator - IBM i 6.1
Group Dekko
Dept 1600
Mail to: 7310 Innovation Blvd, Suite 104
Ft. Wayne, IN 46818
Ship to: 7310 Innovation Blvd, Dock 9C
Ft. Wayne, IN 46818
http://www.dekko.com


-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of
Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2021 1:53 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>;
James H. H. Lampert <jamesl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Floppy drives on ancient AS/400's

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not
click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know
the content is safe.


I believe there was one vertical column tape drive supported on the
earliest machines. Most though were rack mounted about 5U or available
as table top with a cover.

The most common early unit was 1600 and 3200 BPI (the later not a
standard density) It had a smoked color plastic door that you really
couldn't see through. The control panel was terrible and it was so
unreliable it was referred to as the '9347 piece of shit.' IBM replaced
the planar board in ours half a dozen times. It was not an IBM
manufactured drive. The 9348 replace it and it did 1600 and 6250 BPI.
(It could not read the 3200 BPI tapes) It was fabulously more reliable
and the same size as the older unit. Tapes in these were slid into the
front like a pizza.



On 5/21/2021 1:37 PM, James H. H. Lampert wrote:
On 5/21/21 10:26 AM, Steinmetz, Paul via MIDRANGE-L wrote:
In the late 80's our S/38 had the below.

8" floppy - Used for system maintenance.

Hmm. As it happens, the 4341 I mentioned in another thread had 8" floppy
drives buried inside at least one, and possibly several, of the cabinets.

BTW, are there any pictures of what a 1/2" reel tape drive even *looks
like* on an AS/400? Does it look like your typical mainframe tape drive,
vacuum columns and all? (I think the only place I can recall seeing tape
drives of that sort in operation, in person, is at the Computer History
Museum, in Mountain View, on their restored IBM 1401 [and maybe also
their restored PDP-1, although I think *that* uses a *punched paper
tape* drive]).

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--


*Jeff Crosby*
VP Information Systems
UniPro FoodService/Dilgard
P.O. Box 13369
Ft. Wayne, IN 46868-3369
260-422-7531
direct.dilgardfoods.com

The opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily the opinion of my
company. Unless I say so.
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