Nine track tape BOT sensing foil

[Chuck Guzis]

On 1 Mar 2007 at 5:30, Mr Ian Primus wrote:

> > - so, does anyone know of a currently available
> > solution? That metal duct work tape perhaps? I don't
> > want to use anything that might risk damage to the
> > heads though. Any ideas?

It's still available, but you have a look a bit.  See, for example:

http://www.datalinksales.com/cgi-
bin/shop/datstore.cgi?user_action=detail&catalogno=011%20001000

Most of the audio sensing tape that I see emphasizes its conductive 
aspect, while the stuff used for 1/2" tape is used as a reflective 
medium.  While the audio tape stuff might work, I'm not certain.

In the bad old days, it was not uncommon for a boot tape to turn up 
with an error when you least needed it--or for you to have forgotten 
to bring the boot tape for the system you needed to start--say, for a 
system with a different configuration.

The practice then was to separate varioius boot records with BOT 
markers--so you could simply hit LOAD and the drive would space 
forward to the next load point.  Probably one of the oldest "boot 
manager" systems.  Invaluable if you were out in the field a couple 
of thousand miles from home.

I don't know if this will work with all of the autoloading drives, 
but it certainly worked just fine on the floor-standing vacuum-column 
units.  But then, this was when you could take a large Samsonite case 
full of tape as carry-on luggage and not have to worry about being 
strip-searched.

Cheers,
Chuck