Memorex Telex International NV has announced the 5490 Cartridge

Tape Subsystem which is said to enhance productivity, reduce floor space requirements and includes several features not available with IBM's 3490 Magnetic Tape Subsystem. Standard features include a 2Mb data buffer and a 2Mb reserve buffer, accelerated rewind, automatic cartridge loaders, first channel attachment and upgrade granularity of two transports. Optional features include expanded automatic cartridge loaders, and eight channel support. Memorex says that the expanded cartridge loaders enable customers to improve mount times for non-specific mounts, as well as reducing operator intervention. The 5491 Control Unit is capable of eight channel support which enables users to access tape transports from a greater number of host processor images, and the 5490 subsystem is available in both unstacked and stacked configurations. The 2Mb reserve data buffer enables either control unit to assume static buffer management for up to 16 tape transports should either control unit need to be taken off-line. Accelerated Rewind reduces rewind time by 33%, which increases the amount of time tape transports are available for productive processing. The standard automatic cartridge loader has a capacity for six cartridges, and the expanded version has the capacity for 24. The 5490 Cartridge Tape Subsystem may be upgraded from one control unit and one cartridge drive unit - two transports - to two control units and eight cartridge drive units -...