History (1980): DEC TU80

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TU80

The TU80 was a manually-loaded nine-track tape drive sold by DEC for the PDP-11 and VAX computers.

It was manufactured for DEC by Computer Peripherals, Inc. (CPI) of Morristown, PA. CPI was a subsidiary of Control Data Corporation (CDC), which besides being a computer manufacturer themselves also provided peripherals and storage components for other vendors.

The TU80 appears to have been controlled by a Motorola 6802 processor, a variant of the 6800 with 128B of internal RAM and an internal clock oscillator. There were also five 6821 Parallel Interface Adapter chips for interfacing to the various parts of the bus and operator panel etc. The firmware was stored in an 8KB ROM chip.

Manufacturer: Digital Equipment Corporation
Media: standard half-inch tape, 2,400 ft. maximum
Tape density: 1,600bpi
Tape speed: 100 inch/sec (streaming) or 25 inch/sec (start/stop)