[78-L] Cassette tapes are the future of big data storage

[David Breneman]

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>Sure, why not go full circle. My first computer was a Timex-Sinclair and 
>it stored its programs on audio cassettes. I could upload to cassette in 
>real time but could download at 2X which was convenient. I still have 
>the computer and the cassettes. I haven't fired it up in almost 30 years!

I never got into home computers, it was always a way of paying the
bills for me, so I never used a machine with an audio cassette
input.  It was just recorded modem sounds, wasn't it?  I once did
something similar feeding an ASR-33 Teletype with a tape recording of
itself made off the phone line.

But cartridge tapes have been commonplace for decades.  IBM built
9-track drives that used a tape with a special band around the
reel that allowed to tape drive to loosen the band, blow the end
of the tape out a slot in the band, and thread it automatically. In
the 80s, the QIC format cassettes were almost as common as 9-tracks.
Every vendor had one, even it they weren't compatible with each
other.  Then came the Exabyte drives that used an 8mm video cassette.
Those were followed by the DDS drives that used a tape based on the
DAT tape.  DEC had a cartridge tape that evolved into the DLT and
its successor the LTO cartridges.  The thing that I found confusing

about the article was that it's nothing new.