The Fine Line Between Trash and Treasure (April 13, 2008)

Thanks for everyone's patience.

Unfortunately, the studio which supported these formats has recently closed their doors. Part of an overall trend that is forcing a lot of studios on the east cost out of business.

I am sorry I am unable to offer any additional technical help. It is quite possible that a restore company would be able to support these formats as well. If I find a good one, I will let you know.

For what it's worth, I am still willing to donate my time!
 
Hey -- thanks for checking, I'm glad people are looking into this regardless of the results. I'm going to run a CIC update in the next few days asking for help. Here are pictures of the media types we found:

SyQuest Drive: https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/mythic001.jpg
8mm Tape: https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/mythic002.jpg
Multi-System Tape: https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/mythic003.jpg

... and here's a picture of part of the job site:

https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/mythic004.jpg

There are more boxes to the right and the left of the photo - including another entire table (on the right)! There's also an amazing table with all of Origin's awards plaques and trophies on it...
 
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I need to double check with my father but I believe he has one of those Syquest drives in his attic. It's been a while but I do recall him having one and having tons of those tapes lying around. Hopefully it wasn't one of the many devices killed in a lightening strike 9 or 10 years ago.

Probably have an answer later today.
 
Good -- I have some word as to what's on them, too and... well, it's good. See me on IRC tonight. :)
 
Ok he still has the drive, although he's unsure if it still works and if it will take the 200 MB cartridges. He used the 44 MB cartridges in it, he's checking to see if it will do the 200 or if he has another one lying around.

Hopefully it does as I'm sure he wouldn't have a problem parting with it.
 
What might be even more useful is if he could tell us a little about the drives -- what sort of SCSI connection they need and what kind of old Mac we should/can dig up for them?
 
They use SCSI1 connectors. I'll ask him about what kind of system is needed, hopefully one of the numerous old Macs he has is usable. IIRC it was originally hooked up to a Mac IIci but not 100% sure.
 
Ok I've got some good news! He does have the SQ555 drive and it reads 44, 88 and 200 MB cartridges. It uses SCSI1 connectors so any 1990s era Mac II or PowerMac should do the trick. However he won't be able to check if the drive works for a few days since it requires digging up an old Mac as well. Hopefully it still works because he didn't use it for very long before moving on to other storage methods and it has been in storage itself since then.
 
Wow... lucky they actually sent that stuff there and that its safe. I wish I could help, man do I ever! Unfortunately for me, school, lack of transportation/money, virtually no knowledge in converting old data types to new types, and distance are all conspiring against me.

I have terrible luck when it comes to stuff like this....
 
Hey guys!

Big update: we hit the beach July 21st!

We now have an 8mm tape drive up and running - but... we've spoken to some of Origin's old sysadmins and they tell us the backup tapes will be of Novell servers. Does anyone know how to restore a Novell formatted tape?
 
You'll need to know which version of Novel they were running (Probably 3 or 4) and what back up utility they used. Do the sysadmins remember that?
 
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