Pertec Tape Drive Interface Musings

This hypothetical interface + matching software would be intended for archiving old tapes and/or making new copies from archived file (i.e., to make new boot media for bringup of an old computer). Key features would include preservation of block sizes (even if varying arbitrarily) and file marks. I'm not sure if there's already a good file format for that, and I have a dim memory of previously reading a lament about common archival methods failing to preserve blocking. This thing would have some sort of ad-hoc interface(s) (USB? Ethernet? Standalone with an SD card for storage? Pneumatic?), specifically to avoid being flavored by any particular operating system's idea of what a tape drive ought to look like. Is there any other sort of metadata that should be included? Any wish lists for features or file format details? I'm just brainstorming, and this isn't guaranteed to ever see the light of day, of course. -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net> http://www.nf6x.net/