🚀 go-pugleaf

Recently, the price of removable 40Mb cartridge drives have been dropping,
while at the same time the number of labels under which these drives are
sold has skyrocketed.  Prices seem to range from a minimum of around
$800 to a maximum of $1600 for a unit with a single cartridge drive.

All of these drives use the same internal Syquest mechanism, so the
differences between models must lie (1) in the packaging, i.e., case, power
supply, etc, and (2) in the software.

I would like to collect comments on (1) and (2).  (I'll post a summary to
the net).  If you have one of these drives, please send me commentary and a
list of software (with functionality) that came with the drive and price.

Among the manufacturers I've called for specs are Mass Micro, PLI, LaCie,
Microtech, MicroNet, Cutting Edge, and Ehman.  Have I missed any?  

There have been some comments on the net that some drives use cartridges
that are formatted so as to be incompatible with others.  Each of these
manufacturers denies this.  There have also been some comments on the net
that some manufacturers have driver software that does not auto-mount the
cassete--this they also deny.  Any comments?  

Also, MicroNet claims that there is an active discussion of these drives on
ComnpuServe.  Anyone out there care to summarize the opinions there?

Thanks,

Walter




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Walter C3arlip 				c3ar@zaphod.uchicago.edu
(the "3" is silent)			c3ar%zaphod@UCHIMVS1.bitnet
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