I'd also
be curious to hear from Ashley (or others) how reading old
 DECtapes goes - do you ever have "sticktion" problems? or see stick-shed
 syndrom?
 (ah, I remember watching os/8 load off a dectape unit connected to an 8/i
 running tss/8...  It had 4 8/l's slaved off it and 'served' the dectape drive
 up to which ever asked for it)
 -brad 
 I think that Al Kossow has lots of experience reading old DECtapes based on
 the good DecTape archives that he has on bitsavers.  Al,  can you share a
 little of your experience and insight with the rest of us?  How well do these
 things hold up 30-35 years later when they are actually being read and
 written to on a TU56? 
 
IIRC, DECtapes are a really cool design, the magnetic surface is sandwitched
between two layers of plastic (or is it mylar), and as a result don't have
the issues normally associated with tapes.
Hmmm, this reminds me, I've a fair sized box of DECtapes I should find and
see if Al wants to read.
                Zane