Yes, that would have been from the MSU Computer
Lab.
For what it's worth, the principal Computer Lab
mainframe starting in about 1984 was an IBM 4381 running
VM/SP.
Prior to that it was a Control Data Cyber 170-750,
running MSU's proprietray SCOPE/Hustler.
Youngsters under age 50 can ignore this message. It's
only for old-timers.
If an old tape reel from the 1980s has a label on it
that reads, "Memorex Cubic 6250 BPI SuperReel" and a typed tag saying "MSU
Permanent Tap ID Number B 577" does that mean it was created at the Computer
Lab, as it was then called?
A former faculty member is interested in
having a data recovery company try to recover files from it. I've run the
possibility past the folks at werecoverdata.com (which I used a couple of years
ago to recover data from a crashed disk) and they didn't outright laugh at me
. But we need to supply information about the tape. Maybe 6250bpi
will suffice, but maybe other information about the system that would have been
used to write the data would be useful. Does anyone remember the systems
that would have been used to write such tapes?
When the faculty member
brought this up, I first thought she was talking about a tape that I remember
writing for her when she moved to Australia back in the mid 80s. But I
think our tape drive was a 1600 bpi thing. I can't remember the model of
the tape drive, but it was purchased with an early VAX-11/780 computer.
Googling has led me to mentions of a model TU81, which is a model name I sort-of
recognize, but ours might have been older than that. But it probably
doesn't matter, because now this doesn't look like one of ours. I haven't seen
the tape at first hand. It's still in Australia or some such
place.
Any information would be appreciated, including any stories you
know about recovering data from tapes that old.
John Gorentz