Storage problem

I keep hearing about the problems of tape decay, but not very long ago I sent a 9 year old 9track to Tim Shoppa to read for me, and he was able to retrieve its entire contents, apparently without difficulty (or he's just that good :) This tape wasn't new when I used it - it was a leftover vms patch tape from the 4.whatever world. Now it was recorded at pretty low density - 1200bpi, if memory serves) but I would have expected it to have many more problems. It WAS stored in fairly dry conditions - on a bookshelf out of the sun in San Jose and Colorado, both reasonably dry places, is this the key factor here? BTW, has anyone heard from Tim lately? I'm wondering if my e-mail's not getting through to him. -- Jim Strickland jim(a)DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Vote Meadocrat! Bill and Opus in 2000 - Who ELSE is there? -----------------------------------------------------------------------