Topic: DAT2WAV - Computall out of business - All versions of DAT2WAV Avail Free

[H₂O]

As many of you all know Computall (The company whom made DAT2WAV) is out of business.

But I just noticed that all versions are now avail for download for free from the website:

http://web.ncf.ca/aa571/download.htm

Also is a new Beta version (probably the last to be released) that supports multiple codecs.  So someone could write a FLAC codec DLL for example.

I approached Jim about this in spring of 06 and he put together a similar release in July 06 so I could lookinto making a FLAC codec but I never got around to it - maybe someone else can.

[sleepypedro]

sweet, thanks for the heads up. 

wget -r in full effect!

if anybody needs dat2wav or scsiping32 in the future and the website's down, talk to me.

[ethan]

now if I could just find a working audio capable dat drive. The two I have found in the passed all failed within a few months of getting them.

-e

[H₂O]

now if I could just find a working audio capable dat drive. The two I have found in the passed all failed within a few months of getting them.

-e

How did they fail and what drives where they?  Just curious

[ethan]

now if I could just find a working audio capable dat drive. The two I have found in the passed all failed within a few months of getting them.

-e

How did they fail and what drives where they?  Just curious

There were drives pulled from SGI indigo's so they were 10+ years old at the time. They continued to work but the number of errors DAT2WAV began spewing was unacceptable. I went from 10-20 errors per 3 hour DAT to thousands. I even bought a DDS head cleaner and it didn't change anything.

[sleepypedro]

i've been through about 5 DDS drives.  same symptoms.  i can't say i'm surprised, we're working with dinosaur hardware here, yknow?

let me clarify:  i've been through about 5 DDS drives *that i successfully flashed with the audio firmware and were able to mount and read audio tapes*.  for every drive i was able to flash successfully, i'd buy three that wouldn't even flash. 

this is all with a known-working model, too.  i didn't much mind because even after failing to flash it with the audio firmware, i could still resell them as working backup drives on ebay.  in most cases, putting the right keywords in the auction headline would actually fetch me a slightly  higher price than i'd paid for it a couple of weeks before!

[H₂O]

Personnally I have never had any drives fail in that fashion.

I do have a lot of drives though - 3 Sony's, 3 CTD 8000's (2 I bought new and all flashed fine), and 1 CTD-4000 series (only used once - drive is new the electronics where pulled from a SGI DDS1 drive).

I haven't been running alot of hours on them though - I have dumped about 100 or so tapes on the CTD-8000 drives and about 100 tapes on the Sony drives.

What kind of lifetimes are you all getting out of these drives and on what models?