That image of the tape library! Brings back memories of being an operator in the 70s. Packing away tapes in sequence, extracting "scratch" tapes to the ready to use racks. Least fun activity - endless tape mounts for system backup in the early hours, before the online system was restarted for the working day after being brought down the night's batch processing.
I once did a project for United Airlines in Denver where their reservation system was located. I can remember that they had dozens of cartridge tape drives. They recorded every transaction from the TPF Apollo reservation system onto tape. Everyday they hauled the previous days tapes to a safe location.
They had me located near the operators. Using VM they created a test TPF system for me to work with. My project connected as a console to allow control of TPF if there was an emergency that required the Denver facility to be evacuated but allowed TPF to be run remotely.
I worked as a tape loader at a bank for a short time in the late 90's, worked mostly with the 3480 carts, we had the stackers, but the drives were only 1 per cabinet. I was never allowed to touch the old 3420's or their tapes
I found old 3480 cartridges in a company I worked for, that someone forgot within a cabinet. Other than that I've used DAT, AIT, DLT and LTO tapes/cartridges (for backup purposes) along the way.
I like this forum about the tape drives that I never had opportunities to work with. I was a card punch operator and a data key typist with a strong typewriting background that I still have.
I'm too young and my first computer was a PC, but my cousins had an Atari with a cassette drive, and I remember having to watch the tape counter closely to locate the exact location at the tape to load the correct program :D
I really enjoyed this. I was a tape operator in the early 2000's at an IBM facility, and we still had banks of 3420 5 and 8's in service as well as clusters of 3480 and 3490E units. They were just starting to build the LTO Tape Library enclosed robotic units and the 3590E automated libraries. This brings back many memories, it was a fascinating place to work.
TS1155 can store 15TB per tape and the speed is 360MB/s. LTO-8 in open systems can store 12TB per tape. These are all native (uncompressed) figures. Drives can do hardware compression and encryption, and the capacity can be higher if compression is used.
Yes, but if you compress and have to restore a system using those tapes it will take longer especially if access paths have to be restored along with it.
Thanks so much for making this miniseries on mainframe storage (disk and tape) @moshix! As a novice mainframer, it's invaluable to see the physical equipment that is abstracted away from so many of us (that is, unless you're in MF storage management). Heck, I have a relative who's an IBM tape librarian today (2023)! I'm sure they'll get a kick out of this video.
3590E devices are quite spectacular I have one and in the 3490 picture the tape holders I have 2 racks of those as well. I recently started work on servicing it one robot needs alignment I found out after snapping a leader off a tape which I repaired after. I have now started testing the ability to restore tape files to real 3590K media using an old AMD system with one of the A50 controller SCSI cards in it and using Hercules to copy the media with DITTO. I also have a TS3584 L52 robotic tape library which uses a VOLSER barcode system to identify inventory and mount tapes this unit came with 6 LTO3 drives and is in working order I just need to barcode some tapes. Tape devices are certainly very cool and interesting to operate however they do take up a significant footprint which is something to be aware of.
At my university, I was computer science student and learned how to use my own tape reel for VAX/VMS systems. Later I graduated from my university and was UNIX system administrator and performed weekly tape backups. I wrote my program to extract data from VAX/VMS-formatted tapes on UNIX machine and successfully made a complete dump from my two tapes. Later SIMH emulator was introduced. I wrote a program to convert my virtual tape images for SIMH TAP format and successfully restored all files from them on OpenVMS running under SIIMH emulator!
I still have one of those reels of 9-track magnetic tapes in storage. But I've noticed a little bit of mold developing on a few spots on the edge of the tape.
tape drive capacity was measured in characters, not bits and bytes, since the record length varied by how many characters were on each line (or punchcard). Since the machines were 6 bit well into the 70s and only used however many bits required needed to store a character, it does not so easily translate into modern bits and bytes like you're doing. In fact, IBM never stated the speed in bits per second, but in characters per second.
It’s interesting how many IBMers react so passionately about this video. They could just release a video of their own stating what they think are the correct facts instead of focusing on irrelevant points in my video.
Some tape applications used disk-based tape solutions. Others use traditional magnetic tape. Doesn’t depend on size of installation but rather on use case
Hey moshix, I just found this. I had no idea the simh project was working on an IBM 360 simulator. Check out this github repository from the primary author. Might be fun to play around with it. github.com/rcornwell/sims
That image of the tape library! Brings back memories of being an operator in the 70s. Packing away tapes in sequence, extracting "scratch" tapes to the ready to use racks. Least fun activity - endless tape mounts for system backup in the early hours, before the online system was restarted for the working day after being brought down the night's batch processing.
I can only imagine. Thanks. !
I once did a project for United Airlines in Denver where their reservation system was located. I can remember that they had dozens of cartridge tape drives. They recorded every transaction from the TPF Apollo reservation system onto tape. Everyday they hauled the previous days tapes to a safe location.
@David Brunner Hmmm. When were you there? My project was around 1988-2000.
They had me located near the operators. Using VM they created a test TPF system for me to work with. My project connected as a console to allow control of TPF if there was an emergency that required the Denver facility to be evacuated but allowed TPF to be run remotely.
I worked as a tape loader at a bank for a short time in the late 90's, worked mostly with the 3480 carts, we had the stackers, but the drives were only 1 per cabinet. I was never allowed to touch the old 3420's or their tapes
I found old 3480 cartridges in a company I worked for, that someone forgot within a cabinet.
Other than that I've used DAT, AIT, DLT and LTO tapes/cartridges (for backup purposes) along the way.
I like this forum about the tape drives that I never had opportunities to work with. I was a card punch operator and a data key typist with a strong typewriting background that I still have.
I'm too young and my first computer was a PC, but my cousins had an Atari with a cassette drive, and I remember having to watch the tape counter closely to locate the exact location at the tape to load the correct program :D
I did the same 🙂
I really enjoyed this. I was a tape operator in the early 2000's at an IBM facility, and we still had banks of 3420 5 and 8's in service as well as clusters of 3480 and 3490E units. They were just starting to build the LTO Tape Library enclosed robotic units and the 3590E automated libraries. This brings back many memories, it was a fascinating place to work.
Interesting, thanks. Where was the facility ?
TS1155 can store 15TB per tape and the speed is 360MB/s. LTO-8 in open systems can store 12TB per tape. These are all native (uncompressed) figures. Drives can do hardware compression and encryption, and the capacity can be higher if compression is used.
Thanks
Yes, but if you compress and have to restore a system using those tapes it will take longer especially if access paths have to be restored along with it.
Yes, I worked with all those tape type devices during my I.T. career. Amazing just how far storage has become.
Thanks so much for making this miniseries on mainframe storage (disk and tape) @moshix! As a novice mainframer, it's invaluable to see the physical equipment that is abstracted away from so many of us (that is, unless you're in MF storage management). Heck, I have a relative who's an IBM tape librarian today (2023)! I'm sure they'll get a kick out of this video.
Wow. Human tape librarian in 2023 !
3590E devices are quite spectacular I have one and in the 3490 picture the tape holders I have 2 racks of those as well. I recently started work on servicing it one robot needs alignment I found out after snapping a leader off a tape which I repaired after. I have now started testing the ability to restore tape files to real 3590K media using an old AMD system with one of the A50 controller SCSI cards in it and using Hercules to copy the media with DITTO. I also have a TS3584 L52 robotic tape library which uses a VOLSER barcode system to identify inventory and mount tapes this unit came with 6 LTO3 drives and is in working order I just need to barcode some tapes. Tape devices are certainly very cool and interesting to operate however they do take up a significant footprint which is something to be aware of.
Love it ! use to start as an operator on an MVS 370 system ! Love my JOB !
At my university, I was computer science student and learned how to use my own tape reel for VAX/VMS systems. Later I graduated from my university and was UNIX system administrator and performed weekly tape backups. I wrote my program to extract data from VAX/VMS-formatted tapes on UNIX machine and successfully made a complete dump from my two tapes. Later SIMH emulator was introduced. I wrote a program to convert my virtual tape images for SIMH TAP format and successfully restored all files from them on OpenVMS running under SIIMH emulator!
Oh wow. What kind of data do you find in your tape images ???
@@moshixmainframechannel VMS backup format.
I saved some source codes for games, etc. on VAX systems during my college life.
Hi Man, i Haven Mounted thsousends of These Tape Rails , aß Operator on IBM 370 MSV Systems ..... Thanks for Yours Videos ....
I still have one of those reels of 9-track magnetic tapes in storage. But I've noticed a little bit of mold developing on a few spots on the edge of the tape.
You missed the 2401 tape drive. I was trained on 3420 onwards but had to fix 2401s occasionally when on night shift in the late 70s.
tape drive capacity was measured in characters, not bits and bytes, since the record length varied by how many characters were on each line (or punchcard). Since the machines were 6 bit well into the 70s and only used however many bits required needed to store a character, it does not so easily translate into modern bits and bytes like you're doing. In fact, IBM never stated the speed in bits per second, but in characters per second.
It’s interesting how many IBMers react so passionately about this video. They could just release a video of their own stating what they think are the correct facts instead of focusing on irrelevant points in my video.
Hold on . . . that IBM TS1155 slide's numbers don't make sense. So it takes 870+ years to read or write one full tape? How long is the warranty?
True
Spec page for the TS1155
www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/ShowDoc.wss?docURL=/common/ssi/rep_sm/1/897/ENUS3592-_h11/index.html&lang=en&request_locale=en
The storage facility especially its later features to maximize applikation ability and how it was possible to connect it to multipel CPUs?
In the very large Mainframe shops, hasn't virtual tape, which is implemented on disk drives, largely taking the place of real tape drives?
Some tape applications used disk-based tape solutions. Others use traditional magnetic tape. Doesn’t depend on size of installation but rather on use case
I was looking for LTO-8 tape drive and noticed that they are very expensive $3000 each!
Tim, it’s only money !! Who cares ?
You should really fix the Epibyte mistake at around 15'
Other than you so far nobody has even noticed
And how do you fix a video that’s released ?
At least one other person did. Sorry I thought it was possible
I can see if I can add an overlay of some
Kind.
@@moshixmainframechannel thanks ! That would be awesome. And thanks for the video by the way
Hey moshix, I just found this. I had no idea the simh project was working on an IBM 360 simulator. Check out this github repository from the primary author. Might be fun to play around with it. github.com/rcornwell/sims
"Epibyte"?
Mistake. Sorry