27 Dec
2005
27 Dec
'05
12:04 a.m.
Keven Miller wrote:
>7-track tapes went out of fashion around 1970 or
so. In my first job I
>encountered an IBM drive for 7 AND 9 track, and that was in 1969.
>800 bpi would be more like it, but you didnt give the make/model of the
>drive used, so that's only a guess.
When 7 track went out of fashion was somewhat dependent on the vendor. In
the CDC 60-bit world, 7 track tapes hung on until at least the late 70s at
many installations. But that only makes sense, as the 6000/7000/Cyber
series before the 180 was all 60 bit words and 6 bit characters. OTOH, on
the 64-bit Cyber 200 series, it was all 9 track tapes.
200, 556 and 800 bpi.
Cheers,
Chuck