Re: Floppy drives on ancient AS/400's

The 3422 tape drive was the sweetest piece of German engineering ever to
connect to an AS/400. Made me feel special whenever I used it!

I had an OEM reel-to-reel tape drive for my portable AS/400. It worked, if
the proper sacrifices were made to the technology gods, and it was way
better than diskettes.

On Sat, May 22, 2021 at 5:05 PM Don Brown via MIDRANGE-L <
midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

We had the same tape drives connected to the System/38 (3410 and 3411)

My memory thinks the top of the unit where the sliding perspex cover was
on more of a slope but it was a long time ago.

In our case they were very reliable.

And @Rob, I also remember watching the end of the tap floating as part of
the auto-load process, but that was on a later drive and the model escapes
me.


Funny story: The night time operator on the System/38 had a large save to
do every Friday night. With two tape drives he would load up each drive
and set the backup going. He would turn the alarm up to full. Then he
would leave the building and go to the pub next door for a beer and a
counter tea. He would sit in the same spot every Friday and the pub got to
the stage of reserving that seat for him. From that seat he could hear
the alarm on the tape drive and would head back to the office to change
the tapes. I think the backup required five tape changes. That was
enough time for dinner, desert and a few beers. Cheers!!!


Don Brown





From: "Steinmetz, Paul via MIDRANGE-L" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Midrange Systems Technical Discussion"
<midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "Steinmetz, Paul" <PSteinmetz@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 22/05/2021 05:02 AM
Subject: RE: Floppy drives on ancient AS/400's
Sent by: "MIDRANGE-L" <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>



James,

We had a 3410/3411.
2nd pic top left.


https://www.google.com/search?q=IBM+3411+picture&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=7imiJ6eRM7bZKM%252C2_nn373XJWellM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kSSM1KIa-N6Stydf-xKyJaUDB8UZw&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiv_OamudvwAhUOGFkFHe3WAxkQ9QF6BAgHEAE#imgrc=7imiJ6eRM7bZKM



More good pictures.


https://www.google.com/search?q=IBM+S/38+tape+device+history&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=bJTCBBh7Y4bUbM%252CIhQrCZ1igqoX1M%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kRK8OcjybfNZytNqH-NP0eC6pDtZA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi8qtSEttvwAhUrFlkFHTR4Cz0Q_h16BAgPEAE#imgrc=bJTCBBh7Y4bUbM


Paul


-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of
James H. H. Lampert
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2021 1:37 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Floppy drives on ancient AS/400's

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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JHHL
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