[HECnet] Introducing myself... and my little network

[Dave McGuire]

On 06/08/2012 03:09 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
The most common problem with the TK50 is that the tape pickup gets off
the holding arm. Easy to fix if you are comfortable with a screw driver.
I've had one or two TK50 go bad in other ways, but in my experience it's
pretty uncommon for them to really break.
It's almost always that pickup. Let me know if you need help
understanding that.

  The "tongue"?   Been fixing that problem for years.   At one point I
ordered a box of (I think) ten of those while DEC was still selling them
as repair parts, but they're all gone now.   Eventually the little
grabber end breaks off due to plastic fatigue.

  The drives whose tongues are intact simply refuse to read and cause
device timeouts.   I have at least 7 or 8 in that condition, with no
obvious mechanical flaws.   I haven't dug into them very deeply.

                      -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA