also you mentioned trying to figure out how to archive all these tapes i suggest you contact this guy he might be able to help http://ascii.textfiles.com/
Those tapes aren't DDS4 though, they're a propietry sony format meaning you'll need a sony tape drive that supports them... Good luck with that =/ http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SONY-SDX-400C...642?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item58873a209a That takes upto 91GB tapes... Kinda pricey. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sony-Internal...C_Drives_Storage_Internal&hash=item3f024bfcb3 Cheaper one, in USA.
Splith's right: if the tapes in the archive are the same as the ones ASSEMbler posted, then they are AIT-1 format, which isn't compatible with DDS (completely different tapes, based around the Video8 cassette format rather than the DAT format). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Intelligent_Tape#AIT-1
I see the newer ait drives are cheaper, would they be backwards compatible with the older tapes, sort of like a zip drive was?
Judging by Wikipedia (which is always dubious), AIT-4 and AIT-5 drives will not be compatible. Any one got any ideas on AIT-2s or AIT-3s?
do you have a bunch of different tapes? or mostly the same? if you got a bunch of different tapes then contact the txtfiles guy hes an archivist and historian out of Boston he archived the old BBS scene i wonder if he would wanna help archive or even retrieve acclaims company archive besides it wouldn't hurt heres his twitter its the only contact info i have found for him https://twitter.com/#!/textfiles
That's what I was wondering. Hopefully the tapes would be collected over a period of time, and therefore from different eras of capacity? Unless they spent the time keeping everything up-to-date, which I suppose would make everything looking pretty and congruent. To update my previous statement, it seems my SCSI cord is toast. I need to get another one now, anyway (to update some of my backups), - what's the cheapest place to get these things? Ebay is retarded expensive. Monoprice looks like they might be the best. http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...d=10205&cs_id=1020502&p_id=761&seq=1&format=2 Thoughts?
i ment more like the brand computably are then all SONY drive compatible HP compatible IBM compatible there are literally dozens of compatibility for drives all using different file systems and compression algorithms @_@:ayashi::banghead::gravedigging:
AIT is sony propietry meaning their tapes, their drives, their drivers. I wouldn't think they are compatible at all, with DDS; DDS1 tapes only work in DDS1 drives, DDS2 tapes only work in DDS2 drives, etc. AIT seems to have a multitude of tapes for each AIT revision, AIT1 tape, AIT1 turbo tape etc. which extends the length of tape and the amount of data they can hold. The picture assembler posted resembles an AIT1-turbo tape. And SCSI cards; expensive? :S. Some cards are pricey but it depends, you can get cheap cards off ebay (I got a PCI-X SCSI card for £15, and a PCI SCSI card for £5 but some people sell them for £100-£200). Depends on what features and numbers of ports you want. I have a SCSI card here from an old dell poweredge server with battery backup and RAM onboard, you can have it (for free) if you want it.
You Rang? Jason Scott of Textfiles here. I was alerted I was being discussed in this thread. I offer my time and resources and contacts to get the data off those tapes. You can reach me at jason@textfiles.com or a phone call to 617-269-8696. Anytime. I'm actually out of the NY area these days but can drive all over new england. Hope to hear from you - it sounds like you got a potential treasure trove.
I'm right across the bridge so this seems possible. I will dig them out this week and catalog them. I also have 20 psx and saturn dev drives.
Looks like you might have all the help you need in Jason, but as per the days when I was going to buy the tapes off you, I'd still be happy to help recover data should you need it. Whether I still have a drive working, I'm not sure... and getting over there for a bit may prove interesting! Saturn drives? Can most certainly help with those! Whether it's PC, Mac or Mirage, I have a machine set up that'd accept them. Again, bringing them over might prove interesting, though...
If/when these things get backed up, I'm certainly willing to archive any SNES related things that are found.