HELP ! Acramatic Big Blue Tape Drive Failure

[Mark Pelnar]

We have a Cincinncati 10 HC 2500 w/ Acramatic Big Blue controls, the tape drive died. So I am wanting to boot off of a 3.5" floppy. I know this can be done Siemens wants $1200.00 + to do it. I have all systems tapes in binary files just need some direction to get a boot disk built, or a copy of a boot disk for any big blue controller and I can modify the system data.

[hmtr]

The problem is you will also need the FD3 card that controls the floppy drive. If you already have that, the next thing is software. The software on the Big Blue actually needs to be rewrote to see the floppy, simply copying the tapes into binary format won't work.

Getting someone's "boot disk" is probably going to be very difficult. You would need to find someone with an exact machine. Big Blue controls didn't have a lot of parameters, stuff like travel limits were hard coded, so if you want an extra 1" of 'Y' travel, it used to be a phone call to Siemens.

You might want to look into a BTR instead.

[Mark Pelnar]

I have been away from the machining world for about 20 years so I need to get caught back up. This machine is slated for a retrofit but with work slowdown so has projects. So of course we are looking at the cheapest solution currently.

We have the FD3 and the floppy functions well. Siemens tech said I would need a 3.5" Disk Converter Kit which is the FD3, and CMI translator and floppy drive. We have all of that; they are assuming the machine is running.

If a BTR emulates a tape drive that would be the ticket. I am not familiar with the BTR. I will be by the end of the day.

[hmtr]

If you already have the fd3 and the 3.5" floppy then at some point you should have been supplied a floppy with the machine software on it, unless the hardware is from a different machine.

If you have all of the hardware, and the machine's software was ever released on 3.5" floppy, then you should be able to call Siemens and get just the software. I had a similar situation with one of my customers this summer. They had purchased a used machine that had the upgrade, and no software. I was able to buy just the software for around $300-$400.

[Mark Pelnar]

Siemens is working on it, I hope to hear something today. Thier are fewer out there that can still support these controllers.