IBM yesterday duly announced the 3490 Enhanced Capability 3480-type tape drive, and as expected (CI No 1,614), offer bidirectional recording on existing 3480-type cartridges to provide a total of 36 tracks, or about double the present capacity. The 3490Es include the Model A10 and A20 Control Units and B20 and B40 Drive Units and are capable of reading existing 3480 and 3490 tapes. The 3490 base models A01, A02, B02 and B04 can be field-upgraded to the new models. The new models also have an 8Mb buffer and faster compactor to increase subsystem performance and offer better performance with Escon fibre optic channels – up to 9Mbyte-per-second instantaneous data rate and up to 128 logical connections between the control unit and the host, which can be anything from a 9370 to an ES/9000-900. IBM points out that rewind time is virtually eliminated when reading or writing a full cartridge, removing the need to allocate two tape drives for each multi-volume data set to mask rewind time, and rewind time for partially full cartridges is improved. In MVS, the Locate function will accommodate the new format, and depending on the location of the requested record, it may be faster than with previous formats and can never take longer than a Locate to the physical end of tape. The 9Mbps transfer rate, 8Mb buffer and the faster compactor will not be available until the fourth quarter, but A10s and A20s shipped earlier will be field upgraded free. Inside, there are half as many boards as in the 3490 base models. Up to four adaptors per control unit function can be installed – either parallel adaptors, Escon Adaptors or combinations of both. The A10 is $62,100, A20 is $117,000; the B20 is $72,000, B40 is $113,000; Escon adaptors cost $12,000; the new tape units ship April 26 in the US and IBM is promising to support them on the AS/400 one day. The company also announced the 3490E Models D41 and D42, which offer the same 32-track recording and improved use of Escon channels. Designed for use on smaller 370s, it has in tegrated drive and control ler and the D41 is $71,900 or $4,030 a month; the D42 is $99,900, $5,525 a month, the Escon channel attach ment is $10,700 and the things ship on June 14 in the US. IBM will withdraw the 3480 A22 and B22 drives from marketing on May 20.
