| magnetic tape (Or "magtape", "tape" - is now obsolete) A data storage medium consisting of a magnetisable oxide coating on a thin plastic strip, commonly used for and . Early industry-standard magnetic tape was half an inch wide and wound on removable reels 10.5 inches in diameter. Different lengths were available with 2400 feet and 4800 feet being common. was a variation on this "". In modern magnetic tape systems the reels are much smaller and are fixed inside a to protect the tape and for ease of handling ("" - though it's really rectangular). Cartridge formats include , , and . Tape is read and written on a tape drive (or "deck") which winds the tape from one reel to the other causing it to move past a read/write head. Early tape had seven parallel tracks of data along the length of the tape allowing six bit characters plus written across the tape. A typical recording density was 556 characters per inch. The tape had reflective marks near its end which signaled beginning of tape (BOT) and end of tape (EOT) to the hardware. Data is written to tape in with between them. Each block is typically written in a single operation with the tape running continuously during the write. The larger the block the larger the data required in order to supply or receive the data written to or read from the tape. The smaller the block the more tape is wasted as inter-block gaps. Several logical may be combined into one physical block to reduce wastage (""). Finding a certain block on the tape generally involved reading sequentially from the beginning, in contrast to . Tape is not suitable for . The exception to this is that some systems allow to be written which can be detected while winding the tape forwards or rewinding it at high speed. These are typically used to separate logical files on a tape. Most tape drives now include some kind of . There are several which provide similar results: (most), (), (, ) and (). See also , , , , , , , . (1997-04-05) |
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