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From: gettys@regent.enet.dec.com (Bob Gettys N1BRM)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Tape drives on parallel printer ports??? (shareable tapes drives?)
Message-ID: <18701@shlump.nac.dec.com>
Date: 4 Jan 91 20:59:59 GMT
Sender: newsdaemon@shlump.nac.dec.com
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 31


In article <03.Jan.91.191320.21@cogsci.cog.jhu.edu>, wjb@cogsci.cog.jhu.edu (William J. Bogstad) writes...
> 
>	The subject is the question.  Are there any tape drives available in
>the PC marketplace which can run off of your parallel printer port?  There
>seem to be many network adapters and now floppy and hard disks, but I have
>never heard of a tape drive.  Such a device would be a great help to
>managers of micros who don't have networks.  Just carry the drive from
>office to office plug the power cord into the wall socket and the data cable
>onto the printer port.  It would seem to have great market potential to me.
>I would even consider an external tape drive which used a VERY inexpensive
>adapter.  Like, maybe $30-40 each.  I would want to pay $350-500 dollars for
>the drive itself, which should hold at least 60 Megabytes uncompressed.
> 
>				Thanks,
>				Bill Bogstad



	The closest I have seen to this is a Colorado Jumbo tape drive that can
be either internal or external. If you buy one external version (about $299 for
the drive plus about $125 for the external kit) you will have a drive that is
movable to other machines by adding a controller card to each of the other
machines (the external kit comes with the one for the first machine). These
cards run about $79 (a bit more than you wanted, but not too far). If you were
buying a bunch, you might even be able to get the price down closer to what you
wanted. These take an extended DC2000XL tape which claims 60 meg uncompressed.
It comes with its own software which will also compress about 30-40% (they claim
more) and it is also supported by such things as PC Tools Deluxe V6.

	/s/	Bob