-=> CHARLES ANGELICH wrote to WAYNE CHIRNSIDE <=-

 WC> I'll pay a reasonable price for good tapes but as the ones
 WC> I've here are marginal at best,

 CA> If I can get the data off of them I would give them to you.

If you do I'll pay shipping for up to four, that should hold me until
I get a spare drive for backup.

 WC> I had to format one of them six times before it'd reliably
 WC> take data, I had made multiple copies of DOS - Windows and
 WC> none of Linux as yet.

 CA> Funny but it seems newer QIC tapes have a quality control
 CA> problem? My original old tapes retained the data on them for
 CA> many years. Newer tapes were, as you describe, refusing to
 CA> format and then some that did format were losing data files on
 CA> me. 
 
These _are_ old tapes. A couple of them marked sections bad
and one plain refused data until format 6, interestingly this 
is the tape I chose to restore with and no problem.

 CA> I cleaned the tape drive and ran a series of 'test' backups
 CA> but could find no way to predict which tapes were dependable. I
 CA> can't recommend QIC tape backup at _all_ but it's better than
 CA> hundreds of floppies. ;-)

 Yup. Floppies fail too.

 CA> If you have anyone (anyone at all) who can move your tape
 CA> backups to CDRs you'd sleep better at night.

I'll be set in three months and I think after all this time I can 
manage to last that long.
Heck I did an install from setup disks in November
before I did the tape backups. One set of my Win 3.1 disks
had failures, the other set was clean.

 WC> I'm sacrificing one of my dupes to backing up the Linux
 WC> packages in the next day or so and likely more as I move
 WC> away from Windows. If you're not using that dated stuff...

 CA> Nope, not using it and probably never will. Just can't release
 CA> the data that is on the tapes. :-(

 Understood.
 
 WC> I've heard 47+K is attainable on a clean line.

 CA> I've witnessed connects at those speeds but they don't 'last'
 CA> and aren't a daily occurence, just once in awhile at random.
 
I'm close to the phone company and was recently swapped to
a virgin pair of wires.
 
 WC> I'd love to have a 33.6 but even pricing the used hardware
 WC> ones at Pricewatch I don't recall them being all that much
 WC> cheaper than new 56K's.

 CA> Well what I see is half the price of 56k modems of comparable
 CA> vintage. I also think most 33.6 modems used jumpers where 56k
 CA> are pnp and winmodems.

 CA> --8<--cut

 WC> Clean line _now_ and I _have_ a 56K PCI internal soft modem
 WC> for which there is a Linux driver. Sits in the as yet not
 WC> brough online Pentium.

 CA> I saw some mention Linux was going to be able to use winmodems.
 CA> Is that what you mean or the old Rockwell half software modem?
 
This is a DiamondMM SupraMax and I get _lots_ of hits
on google for the driver.
Apparently this was rather a common software modem
thus the availability of a Linux driver.
 
 CA>> My generation missed most of that 'burger-flipping' first
 CA>> job thing. For me it was dirty nasty factories and trying
 CA>> to not lose any fingers, hand, or arm. :-)

 WC> Me too, first mate on a boat, interior painter, cable T.V.
 WC> installer than like you say working in a really dangerous
 WC> factory that managed to off a few people and maim others
 WC> while I was there. I escaped that place after 7 years
 WC> unharmed and took a driving job.

 CA>> I think burger flipping is a better option?

 WC> Factory job had excellent benefits, free medical, 2 bucks a
 WC> month dental, overtime, bonuses ...

 CA> Mercenaries say the same thing. The pay is great if you survive
 CA> it.
 
 CA> I realize I will never be happy with anything less than 'server
 CA> class' hardware here and did take a look at some 'kits' being
 CA> offered.

 CA> I also know the patience required while you track down every
 CA> little connector, wire, cable, screw, rails (rails not being
 CA> standardized makes me CRAZY!), and other odds-n-ends. THEN
 CA> praying the BIOS and other chipsets on the motherboard don't
 CA> turn out to be unsupported by the majority of OS out there.
 CA> Even certain sound-blaster sound cards seem orphaned already.
 
 Ha, the Pentium that awaits ressurection has two ISA slots
 and three PCI :-) I may swap parts off this machine if
 tightening and cleaning the memory socket didn't take.
 I've been losing my extended RAM periodically.
 RAM snapped in much more snug this time so I'm hoping
 for the best.

 CA> I know where there are two nice guys my age who buy out entire
 CA> businesses, refurbish, and resell their network setups. I
 CA> didn't have the money when I first found them and nothing they
 CA> have is 'cheap' but it's all industrial grade 'big hammer'
 CA> equipment. They had an IBM tower there about 4-5 feet tall. It
 CA> was so big it looked like a 'joke' for display purposes. When I
 CA> have something like that I will sit back and ENJOY while others
 CA> swap parts I will be zoooommminnng along. :-)

Heh.

 CA> I was offerred a VAX once over a decade ago and I considered it
 CA> for awhile then decided the maintenance contract would KILL me
 CA> and passed on that one. :-)

I had an old but operational teletype and paper tape
punch console once ;-)
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