24 Mar
2016
24 Mar
'16
5:34 p.m.
On 03/24/2016 05:13 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
7 track, as Nico points out, is harder to find. It
stayed around
longer than the 1960s, especially on some architectures. For
example, around CDC mainframes you're far more likely to find it
than, say, on PDP11s (though DEC did sell 7 track drives for the
PDP11). 7-track standard densities are 200, 556, and 800 bpi. There
still are people around with working 7 track drives, so if you have
that, there is still an answer, but the number of them is certainly
more limited.
I've certainly written my share of 7-track tapes, but at least in the
last 20 years, I can't recall ever having be ask to read one.
--Chuck