Re: Strange magtape anecdote

[Boris Gimbarzevsky via cctalk]

Thanks for that Al.  Never thought about humidity and mag tapes as 
only time I used to backup data to 9 track tapes was in Vancouver 
where humidity always high.  Also used Time Shoppa's and Kevin 
McGuigan's drives to extract data from those tapes in 
Vancouver.  Doubt I'll be copying any more of my mag tapes but will 
definitely keep that in mind in case I do that in Kamloops where RH 
quite low in winter.  Have a humidity sensor in my guitar case as 
have to moisten a sponge every few weeks to go in guitar so wood 
doesn't crack.  Can detect shrinkage of wood by increase in resonant 
frequency of strings increasing as wood shrinks.  Also take extreme 
care when touching any non-TTL IC during winter here.

http://mnembler.com/computers_mini_stories.html

"George Dragner always wore a belt with a metal dragon buckle.  He 
was a colorful character known for pissing off management.  His most 
famous act was tossing a chair through the window at a customer 
site. The customer refused to believe that the lack of humidity in 
the room was screwing up his magnetic tape media.  As the tape heads 
depend on the moisture from the air to prevent the magnetic oxide 
from being torn off the media from the friction during a rewind. 
George broke the window to prove his point.  He was right ! "

There is a minimum RH specified for tape, but "tape heads depend on 
the moisture from the air"  ??