carry-tape flames

[Charles Hornig <Hornig@alderaan.scrc.symbolics.com>]

    Date: Thu, 8 Oct 87 13:49 EDT
    From: Chris Lindblad <CJL@REAGAN.AI.MIT.EDU>

    I'm curious about another thing.  Happily, 9-track tapes are standardized
    that (at the level of just blocks bytes) they can be written on one
    manufacturer's machine and read on another's.  Is this true of those 3M
    cartridge tapes?  

There are two incompatible standards for the format of the 1/4-inch
tapes.  Most modern drives are capable of dealing with both formats.
Both formats give you a stream of fixed size blocks (512 octets, I
think).  Above that, your software can do whatever it likes.