Al wrote:
By the time PDP12's were built, DEC was using the
same transport
(TU55's, later TU56's) for either format.
AFAIK, this was true even of DEC's early Microtape/DECtape/LINCtape
drives, the Type 55 and Type 555, since the transport is completely
format-agnostic.
The only "LINCtape only" transport was the one built into
the original LINC, and there probably wasn't anything inherent in
that transport that would have prevented it from being used as a DECtape
transport. (The LINCtape control, however, could not deal with DECtape.)