Strange drive from MegaTape Corp.

Hello all,

two daysw ago, I aquired a microVAX II with a RA81 and a
tape drive.
At the beginning, I thought that it was a half inch tape
drive (toploader stype), but it turned out to be a special
thing.
Model type is : MT500C, the "C" standing for a
cache option (128KB). The drive dates back from 1986,
uses 24 tracks and can save 500 MB, which is way more than
the 9-track reel tapes can store.
It can be connected to a pertec controller.

It seems to special because I couldn't find any information
for it except for a german site from which obtained 
the information I provided earlier.

Does anybody on the list knows anything about it ? Any
experiences ? Documentation would certainly help.
I don't even know where to get media for this thing. I got
it whitout any media.

Regards,
Pierre
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Pierre Gebhardt wrote:

>Hello all,
>
>
>Does anybody on the list knows anything about it ? Any
experiences ? Documentation would certainly help.
>I don't even know where to get media for this thing. I
got it whitout any media.
>
>Regards,
>Pierre
>  
>
I have a drive, and maybe 1 or 2 bits of media for megatape.
 They were 
reliable
as far as working, but the media was very expensive.

At the time they were built in a form factor to fit into a
farm of EMD 
or CSD (I think)
1/2 19" rack x about 8 1/2" high winchester disk
farms.  The winchesters 
were from 300
to 1.2gb in capacity (Hitachi made an SMD of that capacity)
and were 
quite fast
for the time, and were  7" platter seald packs or so. 
YOu could put in 
one of
these drives so the thought went, and have a back up on a
megatape cartridge
for one of the drives.  1/2" tape high end capacity was
around that at 
the time, but
took up more rack space.

I think they were around here in LA somewhere, and I
acquired my drives from
the company estate on the scrap market.

They worked well on our pertec formatted controller, and on
an overland 
I had
at the time.

Since I got them after market, I don't think I have any
manuals, but 
I'll look in
my files.

Jim