24 Feb
2011
24 Feb
'11
3:27 p.m.
On 24 Feb 2011 at 21:14, Johnny Billquist wrote:
And yes, the speed of the motor will affect how fast
data comes
in/out, but only indirectly, since it's the clocking off the data from
the tape that matters. Tricks to increase speed would be to run an
already formatted tape faster or to format a tape at a slower speed.
I'd always assumed that the reason a relative shallow spool was used
is because the tape is reel-driven, sans capstans to assure a more-or-
less constant speed. Some sort of clocking mechanism (either with a
clock track or by modulation methods) would seem to be a necessity.
And it's also why you don't see 2400' DECtape reels...
Cheap Japanese portable tape recorders of about the same time also
used reel-drive; some even had rheostats to tweak the motor speed.
--Chuck