And the other more likely option is the “tp” command.   It too (unlike the later tar), put the filenames at the beginning of the tape.

> On Nov 18, 2017, at 1:37 PM, Ronald Natalie <ron at ronnatalie.com> wrote:
> 
> We commonly used “ar” to write DECtapes (TU58) back in the day.   If the first block has a list of filenames, I’m betting that’s what it is!
>