jwhitman@STL-06SIMA.ARMY.MIL (Jerry Whitman) (06/13/90)
I have posted this question before, but the only response I got was from some folks saying 'me-too'. Certainly there is someone out there who has knowledge of the status of VCR tape/disk backup!! A while back there was a thread concerning an adaptor to allow backup and restore of a hard disk utilizing a VCR. At that time it was one of those 'RSN' items. Since then, there has been noticable silence and equal announcements. The April tome of Computer Shopper has advertised that very capability for (sigh) the IBM PC world. Does ANYONE know ANYTHING definitive about the status of such a beast for our AMY? I am most interested in this capability since I have a VCR already hooked up to my 1084S. My hard disk keeps getting fatter and the need to back up is growing exponentially, but it is very difficult for me to find enough time to pump the required number of floppies into DF0: to get the job done. With a tape (A.K.A. VCR) backup I could start it and let it go while I did other demanding things. You guys that are buying houses know what I mean (paint, fix, trim, mow, clean ... ad nausium)!!! Thanks again, Jerry Whitman - keeper of the FishXref and FishCon
rick@tmiuv0.uucp (06/15/90)
In article <9006131524.AA13464@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, jwhitman@STL-06SIMA.ARMY.MIL (Jerry Whitman) writes: > I have posted this question before, but the only response I got was > from some folks saying 'me-too'. Certainly there is someone out > there who has knowledge of the status of VCR tape/disk backup!! [lotsa stuff deleted] > Thanks again, Jerry Whitman - keeper of the FishXref and FishCon Jerry, In my experience, backing up to a VCR is not a good idea. The problem is that a standard VCR is an analog beast, and the tracking isn't the greatest. The only really serious attempt at a VCR backup (discounting the IBM thing) was tried by Alpha Micro and was called VideoTrax. It required triple backups to be made (three copies) to ensure a good backup. YEEECH! I back up to a Wangtek 5150 150MB SCSI tape drive on my HardFrame. I'm working on nice software to go with it (the stuff I have is cryptic, it's pieces of a program. I'm putting it together). This, of course, doesn't help you because you don't have a tape drive. But backing up to videotape on a VCR is _not_ the way to go. This is my opinion, mind you. Others will no doubt disagree. -- .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. / [- O] Rick Stevens (All opinions are mine. Everyone ignores them anyway.) \ | ? +--------------------------------------------------------------------| | V | uunet!zardoz!tmiuv0!rick (<-- Work (ugh!)) | |--------+ uunet!zardoz!xyclone!sysop (<-- Home Unix (better!)) | | uunet!perigrine!ccicpg!conexch!amoeba2!rps2 (<-- Home Amiga (Best!!) | \ 75006.1355@compuserve.com (CIS: 75006,1355) (<-- CI$) / `-------------------------------------------------------------------------' "I was Caesarean born. When I leave the house, I use the window." - Steven Wright