🚀 go-pugleaf

About a week ago I got a Trakker-250 tape drive from Colorado Memory Systems.
 This drive uses a 1/4" tape cassette and can store up to 250MB.  It runs
off of the PC's parallel printer port so I figured "hey, I have a parallel
port.  Maybe I can make it work under OS-9!"  Well, here's how it's going:


Here's the status on the Tape Backup Project:

I called Colorado Memory Systems to see if the would tell me how the
parallel port interface works.  After navigating their phone "HELP" system
and explaining to at least 3 "Customer Support Engineers" that I DID NOT
HAVE AN IBM COMPATIBLE IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM, I finally got a "Supervisor"
(could have been the janitor for all I know) who explained to me that
Colorado Memory Systems is keeping the details of the interface secret to
prevent the Korean clone makers from ripping them off.  She did admit that
the drive itself uses the same MFM interface as a floppy drive and that there
was a converter board between the parallel port and the MFM port.

A quick check inside my Trakker 250 confirmed this.  The converter board
contains a standard Intel 82077 floppy controller chip, plus a big
microcontroller from Motorola that I didn't recognize.

CMS also gave me a phone number for the Quarter Inch Cassette standards
committee.  I called them and for free (!) they are sending all the specs
for the industry standard QIC-117 control language and QIC-80 tape format.
Maybe (I hope) there will be some hints on how the tape drive uses the MFM
interface.

So at this point I have several options:

    - Give up on the parallel port idea and make the tape drive work
      using the MFM interface.  This would be good for everyone who wants
      to use a tape drive but don't have a parallel port, since we could
      use the standard floppy controller and cable.

    - Disassemble the software from Colorado Memory Systems.  This would be
      a great intro to 8086 assembly language but vey time consuming.

    - Hook up a monitor to the parallel port of a PC and watch it talk to
      the tape drive.  I would have to build a monitor.

    - Write a formal-looking letter from the "QIC committee of the OS9
      User's Group" (assuming I can get Boisy et al to go along) to the
      engineering department of CMS requesting the specs and explaining
      how we could expand their market for free.  I could even sign non-
      disclosure agreements and not give the source code to anyone.

    - Give up and go home.

Well gang, any ideas?  This isn't going to be as easy as I thought (as
usual!)

   -Rich