[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: Bitten by my own "cleverness"
Knut Roll-Lund wrote:
Hi
Michael J. Mahon wrote:
Shouldn't be an issue unless you are trying to rescue old tape
archives. (That may be a little too late... Does anyone have
any longevity data on older backup tapes?)
I think longevity of tape storage is a bit like floppy, if storage has
been good and the tape was originally good it should still be ok.
I'd be most concerned about magnetic issues (printthrough) and
mechanical ones (binder stability). Both are much more difficult
with thin media (unlike floppies).
And in the late 1980's people started to push the recording density
of tape very significantly, and thin it out, to get larger cartridge
data capacities.
I don't know Apple2 tape systems, but my Video Genie cassettes are still
good 26 years later (low-noise audio cassettes). My old notes on volume
settings are still useful. My oldest pc tapes are 15 years old and the
years haven't given any problems there either. Note that these were
Tandberg drives and 3M media and considered to be very good. Own
software too, very fast, based on something a friend of a friend made in
assembly.
My Apple cassettes are also in fine shape. Of course, the data rate
(and therefore tape error sensitivity) was quite low (about 1500bps).
And mine were made on a cheap GE portable cassette deck! ;-)
The only problem I ever had with Apple cassettes was interchange--
in one case I had to adjust the azimuth to bring the high frequency
response up to snuff.
In my experience tape is a better medium than rumor has it to be.
I agree for low data rate audio cassettes. I'm less sure about
digital tape media (unless it contained a robust error-correcting
code).
-michael
NadaNet networking for Apple II computers!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."