I went through this problem a while ago. Turns out that the DAT drives are
helical. This means that the *effective* length of the tape is calculated
based on the density of a helical stripe on the tape multiplied by the
number of stripes that fit on the tape.
[What the hell is he talking about?]
What he's saying is that the 4 & 8mm drives work like a VHS VCR. the read &
write heads *fly* across the tape diagonally instead of along its length (like a
cassette, remeber those?) which means that he calculated the *length* of the
tape as far as dump is concerned as being the physical length of the tape (90 or
120 meters) times the width of the tape (4 or 8 mm) divided by the width of the
tracks ---
a cassette records as follows ------------------------------------------------
a helical recordslike this
////////////////////////////////////////////////
so for the same physical length of tape you get more data on the tape.
I'm sure that is clear as mud but... I tried
-- Ken
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