Working with Old Tapes

[Paul Koning]

> On Oct 17, 2018, at 2:05 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 10/17/18 10:51 AM, Jeffrey S. Worley via cctalk wrote:
> 
>> Cleaning the head from time to time may get you through a read of a
>> tape for backup purposes, but there is a machine called a 'tape
>> cleaner' which is a drive which leads the tape through a path seeded
>> with knife-edges.  As the tape travels through the machine, the knife
>> edges scrape a layer of oxide coating from the tape and smooths and
>> polishes the surface exposed.  This will restore a tape to full
>> usability and should not affect data stored on the tape.
>> 
> 
> "Tape Scrapers" do exactly that. Bake the tapes first, preferably with
> a lot of moving air before attempting to "clean" a tape. If you don't
> all you will do is scrape off the binder.
> 
> Their original purpose was to remove surface debris, NOT cut a layer
> of binder off.

The 1/2 inch tape drives I'm familiar with incorporate such a device.  Typically it's a ceramic thing, so it looks like a small shiny white rectangle near the heads.  It has to be scrubbed clean periodically when it gets brown from accumulated ferrite dust.

	paul