| Information: | The 3480 tape drive was the first to employ thin-film heads and the first to use chromium dioxide tapes.The 1/2″ wide tape is held on a single reel within the cartridge, takeup was onside the tape drive itself.
The cartridge could store 200MB compared to the 140MB on a 10.5″ diameter, 2400 foot reel of 1/2″ tape.
Transfer rate was 3MB per second, writing and reading linear data across 18 tracks simultaneously, or 38KBytes per inch of tape. Previous technology used 9 tracks with a data density of 6250 bytes per inch. Many other manufacturers adopted the 3480 product family specification. |