daniel@sickkids.UUCP (Daniel Guerin) (08/13/90)
This is a summary of my findings following a previous posting. Thanks to all of those who replied. I was asking how I could connect a Kennedy 9300 tape drive which has a standard PERTEC interface to a DECSystem 5000/200, i.e. to a SCSI bus. It appears that the best and cheapest solution is a device made by NCR: the "NCR ADP-53 SCSI to half-inch PERTEC tape controller". The cost is around $550. Call Jim Hart of NCR at 316-636-8434 (or 800-325-SCSI for US sites) for the name of your local NCR distributor. I do not know if this actually works, but I will try it as soon as we get our 5000. There should be no problem with the software because, as some people pointed out, the DEC TSZ05 is a Cipher tape drive with an embedded SCSI to Pertec interface. So my Kennedy with the NCR box should look like the DEC drive to the software. The NCR brochure says that it supports 1600, 3200, and 6250 densities, tape data transfer rates up to 1.25 MB/s, and SCSI bus transfer rates up to 1.5 MB/s. I will post another news item when we have actually tried it. Daniel Guerin, Computer Coordinator Research Institute, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto Voice: +1 416 598 5725 UUCP: {decvax,utzoo,utgpu}!sickkids!daniel BITNET: daniel@sickkids.utoronto INTERNET: daniel@sickkids.utoronto.ca daniel@sickkids.toronto.edu