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I currently have a ton of QIC-250MB tapes that I would like to read from (its been 30 years). I have a Tandberg TDC 3600 SCSI interfaced tape drive but I am lost how to connect it. In the past, with the computers then, they had a SCSI port where I could directly connect it. However, with computers today, SCSI interfaces appear to be obsolete. To be more specific, this is how it looks from the front:

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and from the back:

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The back looks like a 50 Pin Centronics. I am just not sure how I can connect such a device using modern computers, if at all. Any suggestions or guidances would be much appreciated!

Jonas Stein
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user321627
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1 Answers1

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Internal SCSI-I cables used that 50-pin connector, as you can see in this old cable for sale.

Internal SCSI-1 ribbon cable

You'd need to add a SCSI-1 card which would have a 25-by-two pin header (circled in orange) to connect that cable to. SCSI-1 controller card with 50-pin connector circled

K7AAY
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    Thanks a lot, back in the day I remember there was a fuss about terminators. Is this something I need to worry about? So essentially I would connect this card to a computer that still has a PCI bus? – user321627 Nov 07 '18 at 22:45
  • I did exactly the same thing with a qic3020 cartridge - Thankfully it used parallel, but modern ports were no good so had to buy a toshiba libretto win3.11 laptop! You may need to buy / obtain an early PC due to driver issues. The PCI version of that card may be like gold dust so make sure the old PC has the ISA slots - Far more popular for scsi back then. As far as termination goes check if your tape device has auto termination, otherwise make sure you get a terminator with the cable. – JohnnyVegas Nov 07 '18 at 22:47
  • @JohnnyVegas Thanks, thats real interesting to hear you bought a toshiba libretto! If I were to boot from linux, what is your gut feeling regarding driver issues? Are they inherent to the software or the hardware here? – user321627 Nov 07 '18 at 22:59
  • @JohnnyVegas Do you mean SCSI adapter drivers, or the Tandberg tape drivers? (I had the impression SCSI has a fairly standard 'tape access' protocol, just like it has disk access.) – u1686_grawity Nov 07 '18 at 23:00
  • The 6 by 2 pin header matrix on the back does not identify an option for termination, so, yes, you would need to plan to find a terminator and put it on the last connector in the ribbon cable. – K7AAY Nov 07 '18 at 23:40
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    Finding old SCSI cards can be hard. And they can be expensive, as they get rarer. – Keltari Nov 08 '18 at 00:24
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    Stick to what the initial spec of the tape drive requires. The 165 page manual should give you more info. https://www.manualslib.com/manual/908016/Tandberg-Data-Tdc-3640.html?page=1#manual – JohnnyVegas Nov 08 '18 at 07:19