On Mar 30, 15:25, healyzh(a)aracnet.com wrote: believe found That seems logical to me. I wonder how much of the apparent data loss is due to print-through? I was told that tapes ought to be rewound every year or two to minimise the print-through effect. The idea is that by doing so, you change the overlap between layers on the spool, and the effects cancel out to some extent. Having said that, I've just been reading some old cassette tapes on my Exidy Sorcerer. I sold my original Sorcerer (and associated tapes) 20 years ago, but got a replacement (with no tapes at all) for my collection recently. Last weekend, a friend brought me some tapes he'd found from his, unused since 1980. I've managed to read every program I've tried so far -- about a dozen -- on the four tapes I've tried. In a couple of cases, I got errors on the first read, but no problem on the second. I think that's probably due to the tape being more evenly wound/tensioned after playing through and rewinding once, a common effect in compact cassettes as I recall. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York