DECTape head problem

[Wayne S]

Searched a lille bit for Western Magnetics.  Here’s a site that has some surplus heads, even a western magnetics onebut probably not the correct one. There is a corporate charter record for Western Magnetics in Minnesota dated 1964. Maybe this is the same company. There’s also a tape head from Michigan Magnetics. Maybe a merged company?

https://www.surplussales.com/Equipment/magnetic-tape.html


Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 8, 2022, at 13:05, Ron Pool via cctech <cctech at classiccmp.org> wrote:


So it sermsdectape heads are special. I don’t think Dec would have the desire to make them internally so they probably contractef with a company already set up to do that. Who were the big tape head manufacturers at that time? Does anyone know?

A photo of the back of a TU56 DECtape head can be seen at https://www.pdp8online.com/tu56/pics/head_label.shtml?small .
The head has a label on it that reads:
 Western Magnetics
 Glendale Calif.
 Record
 7282

I've never seen a TU56 in person and have no idea if they have separate read, write, and erase heads or some other combo.  The "Record" notation on the above head's label hints to me this might be a write head.

I found that and other DECtape photos at https://www.pdp8online.com/tu56/tu56.shtml .

-- Ron