Magnetic tape

Uncommon card · No. 178935

Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic storage made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany in 1928, based on the earlier magnetic wire recording from Denmark. Devices that use magnetic tape can record and play back audio, visual, and digital computer data. Magnetic tape revolutionized sound recording and reproduction and broadcasting. It allowed radio, which had always been broadcast live, to be recorded for later or repeated airing. Since the early 1950s, magnetic tape has been used with computers to store data and is still used for backup purposes. Magnetic tape begins to degrade after 10–20 years and, therefore, is not an ideal medium for long-term archival storage. The exception is data tape formats like LTO which are specifically designed for long-term archiving. Information in magnetic tapes is often recorded in tracks, which are narrow, separate areas of information recorded magnetically onto the tape. Tracks are often...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Daniel P. B. Smith., CC BY-SA 3.0