Vintage HP Mini Cartridge Tapes Part 1: Refurbishing Drives (HP 85, HP 9825, HP 2645)

The HP mini-cartridge tapes are the bane of vintage HP collectors: they are necessary to make the equipment work, but pretty much guaranteed to have failed by now. I show how to refurbish the 3 slightly different mechanisms (HP 85, HP 9825 and HP 2645): how to scrape and re-coat the capstan, extend its length for DC2000 use, and make the necessary write current adjustment for the DC2000 and modern Athana recreations of the DC100 tapes. In Part 2 we will repair the tape cartridges themselves. The rubber used for the repair is called Plasti Dip.