Retro computer fans come in all shapes and sizes. Some like the big name machines from the dawn of the home computer era, others like collecting quirky pieces like early laptops and handheld devices. Even more obscure are those who choose to collect old mainframe hardware. This can be challenging, due to its relative obscurity and the limited resources available. [skaarj] is just one such fanatic, however, and has begun creating a PERTEC tape drive emulator for his Cold War era mainframe.
For those of us who didn’t work in industrial computing back in the 1980s, the PERTEC interface is an unfamiliar beast. It became somewhat of a defacto standard for connecting tape drives to mainframes. [skaarj] aims to understand and emulate this interface, creating a device with a full suite of capabilities. The PERTEC Whisperer is intended to be capable of reading and writing from PERTEC tape drives, including dumping tapes to an integrated SD card. The device will also be able to emulate a drive when connected to a mainframe.
Thus far, the adventure has already netted some successes. [skaarj] learned useful tricks, like rewinding a 9-track Qualstar 1260 with VHS tape, and how to pull apart the protocols involved using an old-school HP1662 logic analyzer. We can’t wait to see where the project goes next, and it might just have us hunting for a mainframe to call our very own.
