Magnetic tape filesystem

[Steven Hirsch]

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 :-).


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