> On Jan 29, 2019, at 2:31 PM, John Foust via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> wrote:
>
> ...
> I posted about his a few years ago. See below.
> ...
> He wishes there was a modern replacement for reading old tapes.
> Seven-track and nine-track. Speed is not an issue; data recovery is.
> He says hardly anyone wants to write to tapes any more.
>
> A simple transport, a flexible read-head, a bunch of software, right?
> Call it TapeFerret.
The design described by John Bordynuik seems like a good one, and would be
easier still by now. A Beaglebone with FPGA daughtercard is probably plenty
for the signal processing part.
A 30+ track head to deal with a variety of tape formats would be ideal. Not
just 7 and 9 but real oddballs -- there are some 10 track 1/2 inch tape formats
around. Not to mention that one could read DECtape that way, even if the head
is only 1/2 inch wide (some loss of redundancy in that case).
Are the heads that Bordynuik mentioned still around?
paul
