Quote:
Originally Posted by Quoth
For a frightening scary moment I thought you meant paper tape.
That does work for read only or erase random access with paper tape.
There was paper tape on computers (and even to send messages from keyboard 20 years earlier) from the 1940s. Machine tools still were using paper tape after floppy drives came out.
Was it a 1/2" wide magnetic tape on a reel to reel machine. For cartridges, maybe Travan was worst. No, The stringy microdrive on the Sinclair QL was worst.
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My first mass storage device was a TTY-33 I was given with the Data General Nova. Lubricating instructions: remove 4 parts and drop the rest of the machine into a barrel of oil for an hour, let drain, re-install parts and use.
It was an old 1/2" tape drive. A lot faster and more reliable than the Tarbell interface to a cassette tape I had been using. Sorry but at this distance in time, I can't remember who actually made the drive. I picked it up at a bankruptcy auction along with a box of tapes and used it for about 6 years before it died.