HP Forum Archive 14

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Cassette tape supply? Message #1 Posted by Klaus on 7 May 2004, 3:27 a.m. Hi, I'm about to (re)discover my HP-41 collection. It seems that the HP-IL tape machine still works, but the media cannot be formatted (or at least aren't accessible afterwards). Maybe the cassette tapes are damaged due to age. Does anybody know a supply source in Europe or even Germany. Can I use any of the classic dictaphone tapes that fit in size or are there hidden differences? Thanks Klaus.

Re: Cassette tape supply? Message #2 Posted by Tony Duell on 7 May 2004, 7:15 p.m., in response to message #1 by Klaus No dictating machine tapes that I've found will physically fit in the 82161 tape drive, and in any case, the 82161 uses optical end-of-tape detection and requires reflective blocks in the cassette and a hole in the tape near each end. I wouldn't have thought dictating machine tapes had this feature. The magenetic tape iteslf may well be different too. The normal failure mode of the cassettes is that the pressure pad, behind the tape, and which presses the tape against the head, fails. It consists of a metal spring, woth a layer of foam, and then a layer of felt on it. You can repair this using double-sided adhesive foam tape, felt from a sewing shop, and a bit of time. You crack the cassette open, lift out the spring, clean off the old pad, stick the new stuff on, and put it back togetner. I have an article I wrote for Datafile (HPCC journal) on how to do this. If you are serious about data storage on HPIL machines, though, I'd advise looking out fro an 9114 disk drive. The media (double-desnsity 3.5" disks -- 720K disks) is a lot easier to find than the tapes, it stores about 5 times as much data, and it's easier to maintain.

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