16 Jun
2015
16 Jun
'15
1:54 p.m.
On 2015-Jun-16, at 12:31 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
Once ran across a Honeywell drive (7-track) that had a 'vacuum capstan'. The
capstan wheel had a vacuum path through the axle and then transferred the vacuum out to
holes around the perimeter. So rather than a pinch roller or rubber frictional surface on
the capstan to grip the tape, it was a vacuum holding the tape to the smooth metal surface
of the rotating capstan. Or was this common on higher-end vac-column drives?
On Jun 16,
2015, at 3:20 PM, tony duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
...
Most don?t. Some do. I remember using IBM tape drives on a 360 Model 44 that were
amazingly badly designed. The actual tape movement as such, is all done by
the small wheel next to
the head, which just runs the tape past the head.
Which is essentailly the same as the capstan in an audio tape recorder, albeit the
computer
drive doesn't have a pinch roller