Qualstar 9-Track Mainframe to PC Tape Drive (1988)

Ok, I now officially feel old.  I was displaying this Qualstar tape drive in my office when one of my younger staff members came in and asked what it was.  Without hesitation I told him it was a tape drive from 1988 used to copy data from mainframes to microcomputers (IBM XT, Macintosh).  He earnestly asked why they would need that.  Couldn’t they just copy the files to their local systems?  Well, in 1988 we had some token ring networks, but we primarily had dumb terminals and a few standalone desktop computers.  If we wanted to transfer data we had to put it to tape.  The look on his face was of utter confusion.  I forget that many of my staff grew up with the Internet, cell phones and yes, networked computers.

He also asked a lot of good questions about capacity; which I didn’t know.  So I googled a few ads from 1988.  What hilarity.  Below are the ads and here are a few of my favorite snip-its.

• The drive weighs less than 40 pounds and can fit on a desktop.
  I guess we had bigger desks in 1988!
  Also, mine is a mere 26 pounds.
• Transfer up to 250 megabytes of data on a single reel.
  My phone has 16 gigabytes of available space. Just 64 tapes and I can have a complete backup.
• Qualstar tape drives can sit on your desktop, using less space than an ordinary piece of paper.
  Last time I checked, a piece of paper wasn’t 20 inches tall, but it is slightly longer than a piece of paper and slightly less wide.

Enjoy the pictures:)