18 Dec
2007
18 Dec
'07
3:07 p.m.
On Friday 14 December 2007 14:53, Fred Cisin wrote:
On Fri, 14 Dec 2007, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
Those at least have the metal "index" thingy in 'em already...
But all it took for me was to see one diagram of how they worked -- by pulling
the tape out of the middle of the roll, near the hub -- to give up on any
idea of using them. I read someplace that those were made with some kind of
lube on the tape and that once it was gone that was it...
My initial idea didn't use reels, and wasn't particularly concerned with
being able to change tapes, I just wanted some nontrivial amount of storage
to be available to me, and came up with (assuredly totally unrealistic)
numbers for not all that many feet of tape. Maybe as much as *gasp!* a half
a million bytes or so! :-)
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
This whole idea strikes me as just plain
crazy...
But! For some reason the above reminded me of something that I was
considering early on, probably early 1970s or so. Instead of a drum
just use a loop of tape. You can start with an old reel-to-reel deck,
ignoring
Howzbout an 8-track?
Unfortunately, the kids today don't even remember them, so wouldn't fully
appreciate the absurdity.