Fairlight-CMI

By sometime in the late eighties/early nineties, it became apperent
that many of the streaming tapes were failing to recover.
Sometimes one could get a partial set to comeback, but eventually a
"cmi error" would abort the process. Most of us at the time (including
myself), made a concerted effort to copy every thing to the newer
format WORM drive. Still, there were some tapes I never could reclaim,
including some favorite samples such as one named (I think)
trmbns02.vc that had a particularly good bass trombone on the bottom
(I missed that for years). I also had to go begging to Todd Harrimen
for a replacement of the French Franc coin drop sound effect when I
needed just such a thing years later (thankfully he had it).
\
Andrew (Dr. Bombay) and the crowd at Fairlight at the time, made it
sound as if it
was a fatal error that could not be recovered in anyway, and an
imputus for the replacement of the streamer with the WORM. Maybe the
error correction capacities of the time were too small. Perhaps some
weisenhiemer can figure out how to stream the entire content off, find
the fatal error and patch it.

As I am sold out, I only watch this board for nostalgic reasons, but I
wish you luck battling these problems. If someone figured out how to
resurect these tapes, there would be some cool stuff laying about (if
it hasn't been recorded over).

Peter K.


--- In Fairlight-CMI@yahoogroups.com, "Peter" <PeterC@C...> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> Just a follow up...
> 
> As none of the 30 tapes I was given are readable by my CMI, I tried 
> to write to one of them from my CMI, just to see if the tapes are 
> still functional.
> 
> The one I tried seems fine and I can successfully write to and from 
> (using TOTAPE & FROMTAPE commands. I wiped it too during totape (-
> w)). No softerrors whatsoever. This tape, with contents from 1988, 
> was previously giving an "Unexpected Tape Error 3) message, but as
I 
> said it's now fine when formatted with my machine.
> 
> What does this mean?
> 
> 1) The oringal contents have deteriorated, but the tape is still 
> intact.
> 2) The Streamer Heads need re-alligning (is this possible/easy to 
> do?).
> 
> ??????
> 
> I know these are not easy questions to answer, but if anyone can 
> shed any light or offer me guidance, that would be superb!
> 
> Kind regards,
> Peter
> 
> 
> --- In Fairlight-CMI@yahoogroups.com, "Peter" <PeterC@C...> wrote:
> > Hi everyone, 
> > 
> > I have just got hold of 30 used Tapes, but as I'm browsing them 
> > (DIRTAPE command), my CMI says they're either blank (even though 
> > there are supposed to be files on them) or I get the 
> > message "Unexpected Tape Error 3". These are all compatible 3M 
> > DC600A Tapes and most of them are dated around 1988-1989. 
> > 
> > I have a couple of other tapes (Memorex MRX600A) which read and 
> > write fine, so does this mean the 30 3M tapes are buggered or is 
> > there a possibility my streamer could be faulty? By faulty, I
mean 
> > in need of a clean (no idea when this was last done), in need of 
> re-
> > allignment (is this possible?) or anything else anyone can
suggest.
> > 
> > I know this is an extension of my previous posts, but these tapes 
> > have quite a cool history and I'm VERY eager to get my hands on 
> > their contents...
> > 
> > Thanks in advance! 
> > 
> > Kind Regards, 
> > Peter