Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!ames!purdue!decwrl!sun!imagen!atari!apratt
From: apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: VCR backups (was re: World of Atari)
Message-ID: <1468@atari.UUCP>
Date: 1 May 89 20:41:35 GMT
References: <17646@cup.portal.com> <4002@druwy.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt)
Organization: Atari (US) Corporation, Sunnyvale, California
Lines: 22

In article <4002@druwy.ATT.COM> dlm@druwy.ATT.COM (Dan Moore) writes:
> in article <17646@cup.portal.com>, Xorg@cup.portal.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) says:
> > And what about Seymour-Rand's VCR tape backup cartridge??

> What is so amazing about it?  Companies have been selling VCR
> based backup systems for years. [...] If
> you use a good VCR with high quality tapes and some sort of ECC (Error
> Correcting Code) they are acceptable.  I'd still create 2 different
> backup tapes every time I backed up (assuming the data is reasonably
> important).

I brought up a supermicro system in 1980 or so (I forget the
manufacturer and year) from a VCR backup of the root pack, and learned a
thing or two: the standard technique (at the time, at least) was to
write each block several times -- up to ten -- before going on to the
next block.  This makes the backup slower than the nominal kbyte/sec
rate, but you figure with the ECC that at least ONE of the ten block
images will decode with no uncorrectable errors. 

============================================
Opinions expressed above do not necessarily	-- Allan Pratt, Atari Corp.
reflect those of Atari Corp. or anyone else.	  ...ames!atari!apratt