So it sermsdectape heads are special. I don?t think
Dec would have the desire to make them internally so they probably contractef with a
company already set up to do that. Who were the big tape head manufacturers at that time?
Does anyone know?
A photo of the back of a TU56 DECtape head can be seen at
https://www.pdp8online.com/tu56/pics/head_label.shtml?small .
The head has a label on it that reads:
Western Magnetics
Glendale Calif.
Record
7282
I've never seen a TU56 in person and have no idea if they have separate read, write,
and erase heads or some other combo. The "Record" notation on the above
head's label hints to me this might be a write head.
I found that and other DECtape photos at
https://www.pdp8online.com/tu56/tu56.shtml .
-- Ron