Re: [TUHS] Someone wants to use an exabyte [ really bulk erasing ]

[Dave Horsfall <dave@horsfall.org>]

On Sun, 24 Nov 2019, Jon Steinhart wrote:

> The thing that's kept me from getting these out of my basement is that 
> I'd prefer to erase them first, just in case.  Does anybody have 
> experience with a decent bulk tape eraser?

I had a bunch of tapes (some strange type for an early "home computer" 
belonging to my deceased father) that my brother wanted to bulk-erase, as 
they contained my father's business details etc.

Now, it transpired that one of my clients at the time happened to be a 
certain department of the police, that specialised in, err, phone-tapping 
in real time i.e. a known drug-dealer would use the phone, an alarm would 
go off, and away went the tape recorders (both cassette and mag) along 
with humans listening in.  I'm afraid that I can't say much more than 
that...

Anyway, into their bulk eraser went the tapes, and out came blanks.  This 
was confirmed when said brother decided to read a tape, and found that he 
couldn't :-)

So, if you happen to know someone in that area...

-- Dave