On 03/24/2016 05:13 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
7 track, as Nico points out, is harder to find. It stayed around longer than the 1960s, especially on some architectures. For example, around CDC mainframes you're far more likely to find it than, say, on PDP11s (though DEC did sell 7 track drives for the PDP11). 7-track standard densities are 200, 556, and 800 bpi. There still are people around with working 7 track drives, so if you have that, there is still an answer, but the number of them is certainly more limited.
I've certainly written my share of 7-track tapes, but at least in the last 20 years, I can't recall ever having be ask to read one.
--Chuck
