Date: 19 May 2022 21:30:10 -0400 From: "John Levine" <johnl@iecc.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Cc: steve@sohara.org Subject: Re: Tape, was Single User Message-ID: <20220520013011.1DD2A414ABF9@ary.qy> In-Reply-To: <20220519223448.e1db4297aef551734852e4fd@sohara.org>
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It appears that Steve O'Hara-Smith <steve@sohara.org> said: >On 19 May 2022 20:49:51 -0000 >"John Levine" <johnl@iecc.com> wrote: > >> The thing in the picture isn't paper tape, it's a 1/2" magnetic tape. >> It looks relatively new, 1970s rather than 1950s so it is likely >> recorded 9 bits across (8 plus parity) at a density of 1600 or 6250 BPI. > > I didn't look at the picture. That could be a *lot* harder to read >even if you have a drive. I've heard tell of tapes that could only be read >once due to storage damage rendering them more than a little fragile. I would be surprised if it were readable at all. After fifty years the oxide can come unglued from the backing, and there is a lot of magnetic print-through between adjacent layers of tape. It was common knowledge that if you cared about your tape files, you needed to recopy and verify them every so many years.
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