[AUDIO TRANSCRIPT]
Recovery Session #4
Tech: David Torres (@copperveins)
Equipment: IBM 3420 Model 8 Magnetic Tape Unit
Source: Unmarked 9-track tape from Prairie Telephone ECHO-1 archive
[00:00] sound of equipment powering up “Alright, this is attempt four on the unmarked reels from Sarah’s grandmother’s collection. Previous attempts failed due to non-standard blocking factor. Time is… 23:47.”
[00:15] “Initial visual inspection shows heavy oxide coating, typical for 6250 BPI tape. No visible degradation. Label just has a handwritten ‘73’ in the corner. Going to try reading with standard IBM EBCDIC first.”
[00:42] mechanical whirring “…and nothing. Not even getting header recognition. Okay, let’s try dropping to 1600 BPI…”
[01:13] “What the hell? Getting data but the block size is… that can’t be right. Shows as 65535 bytes but that’s way too large for ‘73. System/370 couldn’t even… let me check the drive calibration.”
[01:45] sound of typing “Drive’s fine. This is definitely not standard IBM formatting. Prairie must have modified their tape controller. Why would they need blocks this large? Wonder if thats what they spent the 40 million on?”
[02:10] “Trying to force read with custom blocking. Error correction’s going crazy… hold on…”
[02:45] “These aren’t standard record separators either. It’s like… okay, this is weird. The inter-record gaps are exactly 0.15 inches every time. That’s not possible with standard IBM hardware. You’d get at least some variation.”
[03:12] mechanical sounds, tape rewinding “Going to try the Honeywell conversion settings. Maybe they were running some hybrid system…”
[03:40] “Still nothing. The density’s right but… wait. Looking at the bit patterns… who wrote this? It’s like it’s using all eight tracks plus the parity bit for data. That’s not how these systems work!”
[04:15] “Okay. Let’s try something stupid. If I disable parity checking completely and treat track 9 as data…”
[04:45] rapid typing “Custom blocking factor… no parity… treating all tracks as data… and…”
[05:02] printer sounds “Holy shit. It’s loading. Getting actual readable… who designed this?”
[05:20] “This is a system log from ECHO-1. But these timestamps… How were they recording millisecond precision in 1973? And these user IDs aren’t… they’re not…”
[05:45] paper shuffling “Okay, got something. This looks like… interface code? First page:
PRAIRIE TELEPHONE LTD.
ECHO-1 INTERFACE PROTOCOL
REV: 2.3.4
AUTH: M.CHEN
IMPORTANT: REQUIRES CONNECTION TO BLACK BOX TERMINAL
WARNING: DO NOT ATTEMPT COMPILATION WITHOUT QUANTUM BUFFER
quiet muttering while scanning “This is assembly but… these opcodes aren’t standard System/370. And what’s this comment block…”
[06:15] “Hold on… there’s a whole section about ‘consciousness packet structure.’ The formatting is IBM but these commands… they’re interfacing with something else entirely. Something that needs this ‘quantum buffer’ hardware.”
[06:30] sound of chair rolling back “I can’t compile this without… whatever the hell a Black Box Terminal is. Sarah needs to see this. But first I need a drink.”
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