david@sacto.West.sun.com (David L. Kensiski) (09/02/89)
The message John Gilmore posted answered a lot of unasked questions I had about cartridge tapes, but introduced a couple more. John wrote: > There are two variants of the mechanical tape drive -- 4-track and > 9-track. The tracks are used like on an 8-track audio tape (run all the > way down the tape on one track, then mechanically slide the head up or > down and do another pass of the tape.) Does this mean that the cartridge tapes are multi-pass? If so, how many passes does it take to read the entire tape? Does the drive read the tape in both directions, or does it have to rewind before making a second pass? David L. Kensiski [KB6HCN] Martin Marietta Data Systems Software Engineer 1770 Tribute Road, upstairs Phone: (916) 929-8844 Sacramento, CA 95815 UUCP: sun!sacto!mmsac!david INTERNET: mmsac!david@sacto.West.Sun.COM