Overland OD3201

9-TRACK MAGNETIC TAPE DRIVE

Overland Data 9-Track Tape Drive

My Overland Data OD3201 9-track tape drive makes an appearance at the end of this video. This slow but easy to thread tape drive is particularly easy to interface to a PC thanks to its parallel port interface. It also has a traditional Pertec interface for connection to a mini-computer.

Overland Data Documentation

You'll find below the user manual for the Desktop Pro, which also happens to have the same mechanism as the tower form-factor drive I own. Also included is the all-important DEPOT4 software. This DOS based software supports the parallel interface driver needed for the tape. It also support drivers for Pertec PC interface cards (if you can lay your hands on one) and for SCSI based interfaces. It has convenient utilities to test tapes in read and write, and facilities to dump files in ASII or EBCDIC coding. For that reason, I also use the DEPOT4 software with my other non-Overland SCSI tape drives.