Working with Old Tapes

[Al Kossow]

On 10/17/18 10:51 AM, Jeffrey S. Worley via cctalk wrote:

> Cleaning the head from time to time may get you through a read of a
> tape for backup purposes, but there is a machine called a 'tape
> cleaner' which is a drive which leads the tape through a path seeded
> with knife-edges.  As the tape travels through the machine, the knife
> edges scrape a layer of oxide coating from the tape and smooths and
> polishes the surface exposed.  This will restore a tape to full
> usability and should not affect data stored on the tape.
> 

"Tape Scrapers" do exactly that. Bake the tapes first, preferably with
a lot of moving air before attempting to "clean" a tape. If you don't
all you will do is scrape off the binder.

Their original purpose was to remove surface debris, NOT cut a layer
of binder off.