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9-Track Open Reel Tape Production Ends This Year

Posted by timothy on from the neither-to-rewind-nor-to-fast-forward dept.

Robogeek writes: "eMag, the last maker of 9-track open-reel tapes, has announced that it will cease production of the product in 2002. The full story is here. The end of an era. We just packed up and shipped off our last 9-track mainframe drive for scrap. The thing was the size of a refrigerator, but when we had a bank of 9 of them going full-blast it sure gave the place a cool sci-fi feel. No more spin-spin, whir-whir... (sigh) 'Please stop, Dave. My mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it ...'"

1 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. Converting old 9-track tapes to something better by Old+time+hacker · · Score: 5, Informative

    I have a bunch of old 9-track tapes that have potentially useful data on them. I guess I had better get moving on converting them to something more readable. Now I need to find somebody with a 9-track tape drive!

    On topic: I can recall using magnetic powder sprinkled on tapes to see where the block gaps were. Then you could use a ruler to measure the size of the blocks, and convert to byte (by multiplying by the density). This gave you a head start in getting the JCL DD statement right for the tape. FB/80/800!