> On Nov 3, 2025, at 4:32 PM, ben <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> On 2025-11-03 1:04 p.m., Paul Koning wrote:
>
>> Wind it upside down? Not sure what that means. You could certainly
>> reformat DECtape any time you want, and that would erase it rather well
>> since the format program writes everything as it does the job. Bulk erase
>> beforehand would be ok, sure, but I've never seen that done. We had bulk
>> erasers readily available if we needed them, so it wasn't lack of equipment.
>> paul
>
> Idea is to flip the tape over, since I expect that facing the head that side
> would have the most wear,so you flip the bottom side
> that has the least wear up.
Yes, but that's unlikely to work. The protective coating is far thinner than
the substrate (0.04 mil vs. 0.92 mil for #481 tape), see
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/dectape/3M_DECtape_Spec_Nov66.pdf for the
details.
paul
