*flashback: recording data on magnetic tape

[Chip (OP)]

source: https://www.facebook.com/MainframeZone

recording data on magnetic tape



The idea of recording data on magnetic tape was influenced by Bing Crosby’s use of magnetic tape to record his radio shows in the late 1940s.

IBM’s first magnetic storage unit, the IBM 726 (see below), was introduced on May 21, 1952 as a data successor to the punched card.

But, the use of magnetic tape for high-speed data storage would never have been possible without the invention of the vacuum column by James Weidenhammer and a team of six other engineers working at an IBM facility in Poughkeepsie, New York.

The inventors received a patent for the vacuum column, and it became the industry standard for many years.

And now, 63 years later, magnetic tape storage is still in wide use worldwide.

[Zoops]

Back in the Commodore 64 days, you used to be able to store programs on ordinary audio cassette tapes with a special drive.

Anybody remember that? And also Betamax and VHS tapes saw limited use as data storage media too, I believe.

How about this?

[Chip (OP)]

my first computer was an IBM mainframe S/370-125 in 1979.

i'm that fucking old.

and YA i do remember cassette backup. I hate tapes, actually.

[Biggavelli]

No idea. Just remember it being a huge white Dell tower with 56k and AOL 2.0...shit was bawlin. "Nobody use the goddamn phone, I'm trying to download a song tonight while I'm asleep!"...and you better pray to god you dont get a random late night incoming call to disrupt the connection.

[Chip (OP)]

No idea. Just remember it being a huge white Dell tower with 56k and AOL 2.0...shit was bawlin. "Nobody use the goddamn phone, I'm trying to download a song tonight while I'm asleep!"...and you better pray to god you dont get a random late night incoming call to disrupt the connection.

i had the same disruption issue also with the "another incoming call" BEEP-BEEP on my dialup modem setup years ago: the file transfer just died.

[Biggavelli]

^Fuckin' aye, right? I'd get 96% done on a 4mb .mp3 file that had been downloading for 7 hours, and a damn incoming call would come in. Then shit got real and we got a DSL modem. Fapping amounts quadrupled.