Magnetic tape filesystem

[Lee Courtney]

The MCM/70, an 8008 based APL machine released in late 1974, used dual
cassette drives as mass storage and swapping device. An amazing engineering
feat for the time and technology. Worked well, albeit s-l-o-w-l-y.

http://www.cse.yorku.ca/~zbigniew/mcm_add.html

Lee Courtney

On Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 4:40 AM, Steven Hirsch <snhirsch at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, 8 Feb 2015, jwsmobile wrote:
>
>  Alpha Micro made a card that did backups to VHS.
>>
>
> I had one of those for ISA bus.  Sellam bought it from me about ten years
> ago.  Hope it didn't end up with the vultures who cleaned out his storage
> building.
>
>  Corvus had a thing called the bank, and I think they also had a gizmo to
>> do the tape backup to video tape.  The Bank device was just a product they
>> did for whatever reason.
>>
>
>  I have a case of Bank tapes somewhere and a backup device.  The interface
>> was a Corvus network connection.
>>
>
> The Bank used an oddball proprietary cartridge that operated in a
> continuous loop like an 8-track tape.
>
> I have three working (last time I checked) Bank drives and a number of
> 100MB capacity tapes.  They also made a 200MB tape, but I've never been
> able to get my hands on one.
>
> A friend of mine once claimed that the Bank tape and transport was
> originally designed by Akai as their entry into the VCR market.  If true,
> this would be the first analog video format I've ever heard of that
> switched tracks at the end the loop :-).
>
>
> --
>



-- 
Lee Courtney
+1-650-704-3934 cell