Talk:IBM 3590

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[edit] The IBM 3590 family is a series of magnetic tape data storage formats

1. The 3590 is later identified as a "drive". Is it a format, as in the sentence above, or is it a drive? If it is both a format and a drive, some additional words are needed to make that explicit.

2. "family is a series" is hard to parse. Is it a family? a series? a family OF series??

tooold 06:20, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. --Kubanczyk 15:28, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 3592 belongs to 3590 family?

I think it is controversial to include 3592 and 3590 in the same family. Incompatible media. Different specs. Different appearance too. Could someone provide sources/reasoning behind that? Other than IBM's marketing division view? --Kubanczyk 15:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

When I started the page, I thought it was a series like 3480/3490. Clearly, that isn't the case, but I don't think we necessarily need to split into two pages. The model numbers are similar enough that readers may not immediately know there is a difference. Having 3590 and 3592 on the same page may make it more clear. Also since some of the specs are somewhat similar, it may be nice to have the two on the same page to clarify the differences. This could also be an argument to combine this page and the 3480 page into one IBM cartridge tape page. My understanding is that mainframers have been using cartridge tapes for 20+ years and these are all very similar in usage.

If we do split, I suggest simply calling the pages: IBM 3590 and IBM 3592. My current opinion is that "family" is a loaded term and doesn't add much. I used it for this page only to copy the style of the 3480 page.

I've separated the text a bit to both illustrate the differences and make it easier to split. I'm pretty neutral on which option to choose, but my guess is that performing the split will make the issue go away and leaving it together or adding the 3480 page will lead to much more discussion. -- Austin Murphy 18:13, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, let's split it then. In general I'm against most splits, but this case seems obvious. IBM 3590 and IBM 3592 as you've proposed. On the other hand, an overwhelming merge of 3480 and successors is a neat idea! But such article would need a lot of redirects-to-section (things like Primary storage redirect), and I'm not sure if this is WP:MOS-blessed this month. --Kubanczyk 20:03, 13 November 2007 (UTC)