On the Emulation of TU58s

[Henk Gooijen]

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- 
From: Johnny Billquist 
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2015 7:31 PM 
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org 
Subject: Re: On the Emulation of TU58s 

[... snip ...]
And then we have drives like the TU80/TU81 which do not seem to fit into 
any of the mentioned categories. I'm not entirely sure how they work, 
but I think they are similar to the DECtape in this sense.

Johnny

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The round (approx 2" diameter) "bearings" of the TU80 do not rotate.
Instead, the metal has tiny holes. Air pressure pushes the tape away
from the bearings. As the tape moves, due to movement pressure, the
tape comes closer to the air bearing. That is measured. To get the
air pressure back to some sort of equilibrium the pickup or supply
reel speed is adjusted.
That is how I understand the mechanism ... now writing this down, I
think I should read up the Theory of Operation chapter ...

- Henk