Storage - Magnetic Tape Drives Selection:

Magnetic tape drives were used for mass storage from the earliest days of HP's involvement in the computer industry. If fact, HP's first ever product for the industry was not a computer, but rather a magnetic tape drive (from the Datamec Division).

The first magnetic tape drive fully designed and manufactured by HP was the 7970, introduced in 1970. The 7970 had one of the longest lives of any computer product ever made by HP and wasn't obsoleted until 1986. The 7970 also had many homes within HP. The product was born in Mountain View, moved to Cupertino, then to Boise Idaho, before finally retiring in Greeley Colorado.

In the 1970s, magnetic tapes began to replace punched paper tapes as the primary means of software distribution and back up. Today, vintage tapes and tape drives are far less reliable than the paper tapes they replaced. Today, most paper tapes are as readable now as they were forty years ago. However, most old magnetic tapes require special treatment to become readable, if it is even possible.

In the 1970s and 1980s, magnetic tapes were much faster than punched paper tapes. Magnetic tapes were also much cheaper and had far more storage capacity than hard discs. As a result, vintage software is more likely to be found on magnetic tape than on any other media.

If you need old tapes converted to disc, we suggest you contact 3K Ranger .

Be sure to visit our Supplies and Consumables Catalogs for part numbers and information on all the media and accessories available for these products.