User:Austinmurphy/Magnetic tape project

This is my personal project to index and expand wikipedia's coverage of magnetic tape topics. Maybe it will grow into a "real" wikiproject.

Overview

Magnetic tape
Two Decades of Tape w/ bob abraham

Core technology

base materials used
- paper
- Cellulose acetate "acetate"
- Polyethylene terephthalate aka PET, PET film (biaxially oriented), aka Polyester
- Polyethylene naphthalate, also a Polyester
- aromatic polyamide (Aramid), (is this used?)

binders
- epoxy

coatings / List of coating techniques / Thin-film deposition

quality measurement

History

Preservation

Formats

Template:Audio format

Template:Video storage formats

Template:Magnetic tape data formats

Other:

~2.5 mm -helical - Datasonix Pereos - 1 GB compressed, powered by 2x AA batteries, connected to Parallel port. Slow and bad reputation [1]
The Advanced/36 9402 tape drive, c.1994, had a capacity of 2.5GB. from System/36 - QIC?
3.81 mm - linear - Digital Data Pack (a.k.a. DDP) (1983) - part of the Coleco ADAM
6.35 mm - linear - Irwin Magnetic Systems EzTape - proprietary Quarter Inch format.
8 mm - linear - IBM 3570 MP (1997) - Trapezoid shape, "low latency," inspiration for LTO Accelis concept.
12.65 mm - linear - IBM 3590, IBM 3592/TS1120 - [2], IBM's Enterprise tape redbook, TS1120

These are "Instrumentation" formats and probably do not belong on the "data" template:

19 mm - helical - Ampex DIS (DD-2) [3]
25.4 mm - transverse scan - Ampex DCRsi [4]

People

magnetic recording pioneers

Oberlin Smith - concept of magnetic recording, iron fibers in a cotton string
Valdemar Poulsen - working wire recorder
Semi Joseph Begun - steel tape
Curt Stille - steel tape
Robert von Lieben - amplifier
Lee DeForest - amplifier
Fritz Pfleumer - paper tape w/ iron filings
Friedrich Matthias - BASF
Eduard Scheuller - ring head
Walter Weber - working AC Bias
John Herbert Orr - early US tape factory
Jack Mullin - early US audio recorder, early video recorder
Richard H. Ranger - early US audio recorder
Marvin Camras - rediscovered AC bias, worked with WWII effort for U.S.

mag tape serial entrepreneurs

Ben C. Wang - Wangco, Rexon, WangTek, WangDAT
Juan Rodriguez - StorageTek, Exabyte, Ecrix
Kelly Beavers - Exabyte, Datasonix, Ecrix
William B. Beierwaltes - Colorado Memory Systems, OnStream

Companies

Mag tape (data) corp

list of brands another list

Media

Anacomp - computer services company, owned graham for a while, tape manf briefly [5]
- Xidex Corp. - acquired by Anacomp in 1988. microfilm related company
  - Xidex Magnetics - magtape manf., co-founded by Bert L. Zaccaria,
Recording Media Group International - USA website dutch company with lots of ex-EMTEC staff. now making analog audio tape.
eMag Solutions - "electronic discovery" company, Atlanta, spun off of Anacomp in 1999 [6]
- Graham Magnetics - last manufacturer of 9track tape, Graham, TX, acquired by Anacomp in 1994 [7]

Drives

Aiwa - tape products
Alloy Computer Products - Austrailian manf of QIC, now other stuff [8]
Ampex - better organize
Anritsu - Japanese, Formerly made 9 track tape drives.
Colorado Memory Systems - Loveland, CO, tape drive vendor, [9] found by ex-HP (Loveland) engineers (Alan Richards & Bill Beierwaltes), acquired by HP in 1992.
ComByte - ??
Datasonix - short lived, made the Pereos, a tiny helical scan tape data cartridge. drive had a parallel port interface and battery pack.
Digi-Data - Columbia, MD, [10], old 9track manf, founded 1960, now makes RAID things.
Laser Magnetic Storage - old 9track manf, now part of Plasmon (company).
Kennedy (company) - old 9track manf, defunct.
Mountain Network Solutions - Scotts Valley, CA, "Mountain Tape"
OnStream Data - tape drive vendor product: ADR, Advanced Digital Recording, windows only backup tape format, based on Digital Compact Cassette.
Overland Data - owned Tecmar and also made its own 9,18 & 36 track tape products. acq. tecmar Jan 2000
- Tecmar
  - Iomega - tape products sold to tecmar in 1999
  - Legacy Storage Systems (TSE:LEG) acq. of RExon from Chap 11 FY96 results, incl rexon acq. renamed tecmar 1996 reorg of LSS, drop other 2 lines of biz, focus on tecmar
    - Rexon - tape drive vendor DAT deal w/ sony, travan announce, boca video product, NASDAQ:REXN, closed WangTek and WangDAT facilities in CA in 1994. closed Solon, OH and Ponce, PR facilities in 1995, consolidated to Longmont, CO design center and Singapore factory. filed for bankruptcy sept 1995, acquired by Legacy mar 1996
      - WangTek - acq. by Rexon in 1991, Simi Valley, CA & Ponce, PR.
      - WangDAT - also acq. by Rexon in 1991 [11], Irvine, CA.
      - Sytron - PC backup software division, Westboro, MA. Sold to Arcada Software July 28, 1995 [12].
Perkin-Elmer
- Wangco - Ben C. Wang's first startup.
Quantum Corp.
- M4 Data, M4 - British, formerly made 9 track tape drives. Quan. acq.
- Benchmark Storage Innovations - value DLT, 20% owned by Quantum originally, 100% later. [13] [14]
- Certance
  - Seagate Technology
    - Conner Peripherals
      - Archive Corp.
        Ardat Inc. - Archive subsidiary, never independent?
        
        Maynard Electronics - lake mary, FL, tape drive vendor, origin of Backup exec.
        
        Cipher Data Products - parent of irwin, Scripps Ranch near San Diego. open-reel
        Irwin Magnetic Systems - tape drive vendor goldmine!, Ann Arbor MI.
Tandberg Data
- Exabyte (company)
  - Ecrix - new 8mm format, founded in 1996, by 2/3 exabyte founders, lower cost "midrange" tape, "merged" in 2001. [15]
  - Everex - (MSD) QIC vendor
  - R-Byte - DAT technology [16]
  - Tallgrass Technologies - 8mm
- Tandberg Storage] (66% ownership)

Robots

Quantum Corp.
- ADIC
- ATL Products - Irvine, California based Automated Tape Library manufacturer. [17] [18] home page pre-acq.
- M4 Data, M4 - British, formerly made 9 track tape drives. Quan. acq.
Overland Data - owned Tecmar and also made its own 9,18 & 36 track tape products. acq. tecmar Jan 2000
Qualstar - former 9 track manf, current tape lib manf.

Factories

List of magnetic tape factories - world wide, with chronology. I think there are fewer than 20 or so, but magnetic tape is and was very widely used. There are only a few functions that a plant does. oxide production, base material production, binder production, coating, slitting, and packaging. Few, if any, factories do all the functions. Here is a template/example: List of alumina refineries
- Ludwigshafen am Rhein - BASF/IG Farben - developed Pfelumer's paper tape into cellulose acetape w/iron oxide (Type C). tank car explosion in July 1943, non-war related, disabled production line.
- Wolfen, Germany - AGFA/IG Farben - relocated production here after above explosion. began operation in 1944. This became part of "East Germany" and was called ORWO.
- Leverkusen, Germany (near Cologne) - AGFA - relocated production to new factory here in 1948.
- Munich - AGFA --> BASF --> EMTEC, production moved here in the 1970's and merged with BASF in 1991. Spun off in 1996 and renamed EMTEC in 1997. EMTEC went out of business in 2004. Plant assets were moved to RMGI's existing plant in Oosterhout in 2006. liquidation info
- Oosterhout - Recording Media Group International/Media Products Oosterhout/Dupont Philips Magnetics, currently (2007) making the EMTEC analog audio formulations with many old EMTEC engineers. [19]
- ---
- Opelika, AL - Orradio Industries --> AMPEX --> Quantegy
- Graham, TX - Graham Magnetics
- Hutchinson, MN - 3M / Imation ?? Videotape coating, slitting, packaging
- Camarillo, California - Imation, data-tape
- Weatherford, Oklahoma - Imation, data-tape
- Willstätt, Germany - EMTEC [20]
- Greenwood, South Carolina - Fujifilm/SKC
- ?? - Rhône-Poulenc
- ?? - Sony
- ?? - Fuji
- ?? - Maxell
- Kyushu, Japan - TDK Mikumagawa plant ??
- Luxembourg - TDK, converted to optical media.
- Zelenogorsk, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia - "ECP" Federal State Unitary Enterprise, Production Association, Electrochemical Plant, CrO2 formula audio, video, & data tapes. Started in mid 1990's with assistance from BASF.
- Saehan Media - Korean VHS tape maker, liquidated? by Lone Star Equity Group
- SKM Limited - also Korean
- York, PA - ATR Magnetics
- Mexico City - Auriga-Aurex, audio & video tape production and packaging.
- Avranches, France - Pyral since 1985 at Avranches. makes perforated magnetic tape for sound recording in cinema film cameras.
- ?? - Matsushita Denki Sangyo - Second source for S-AIT. (Sony is primary)