From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 14643 invoked from network); 28 Jan 2023 20:18:09 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 28 Jan 2023 20:18:09 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2485442548; Sun, 29 Jan 2023 06:17:37 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail.kaybuena.com (rrcs-71-42-153-194.sw.biz.rr.com [71.42.153.194]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id D3264424F0 for ; Sun, 29 Jan 2023 06:17:31 +1000 (AEST) Received: from [192.168.147.6] (4dot2 [71.42.153.195]) by mail.kaybuena.com (8.17.1/8.15.2) with ESMTP id 30SKHUEg2249310 for ; Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:17:30 -0600 Message-ID: <9274d976-dad7-06af-b546-23d4091f7ed4@technologists.com> Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:17:30 -0600 MIME-Version: 1.0 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; rv:102.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/102.6.1 Content-Language: en-US To: coff@tuhs.org References: <6778F07B-DD74-4F04-A877-7D3751E96317@quintile.net> From: "Charles H Sauer (he/him)" In-Reply-To: <6778F07B-DD74-4F04-A877-7D3751E96317@quintile.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Greylist: Sender passed SPF test, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.6.4 (mail.kaybuena.com [71.42.153.194]); Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:17:30 -0600 (CST) Message-ID-Hash: RXHM7T2FYNBRVHXUBP6QNLKATIHVKVKG X-Message-ID-Hash: RXHM7T2FYNBRVHXUBP6QNLKATIHVKVKG X-MailFrom: sauer@technologists.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [COFF] Re: reading historic magnetic tapes List-Id: Computer Old Farts Forum Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: This seems COFF, not TUHS, and mostly not digital... I have many 4mm DAT cartridges from 20-30 years ago. Every now and then I will access one. So far I've yet to see evidence of the media degrading. On 1/28/2023 4:12 AM, Steve Simon wrote: > baking old, badly stored magnetic tapes prior to reading them is a common practice. For the last year+ I have been digitizing selected audio tapes made in the 70s at AWHQ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_World_Headquarters). The ones I've been working with are 1/4" on 10.5" reels. A printed inventory I was given says "bake" next to almost all of the items, but so far, after processing roughly 40 reels, I've yet to find one that seemed to need "baking" (actually, "baking" is a bit overstated, in that best practice is to raise temperature to roughly 150F -- https://www.radioworld.com/industry/baking-magnetic-recording-tape). For now, I'm not able to share those AWHQ recordings, but I can share other recordings I made in the 60s and 70s at https://technologists.com/60sN70s/. In all those reels, many of which are cheap, unbranded tape, I didn't find any that seemed to me to need baking. Charlie -- voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer@technologists.com fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/ Facebook/Google/LinkedIn/Twitter: CharlesHSauer