Memory

Operation

The data storage on a magnetic tape carried by the magnetization of an appropriately coated tape. The mostly plastic strips are drawn past a magnetic field and thereby be small magnetic needles that come with the special coating on the tape aligned. Due to the orientation of the needles, information can be identified and recycled. This is as long as possible until the magnetic needles were realigned. Basically, the band on a read-write head is passed. The read-write head is a metal ring that is open on one side. It is (seen in picture above), a small current to the non-open side of the ring in the form of a coil creates a magnetic field created thereby (indicated by red in the picture) at the opening. Through the application of power at the open side of the ring generates a magnetic field. This characteristic is called induction. On the open side of the ring, the band (marked on the image as brown) passed. For writing and reading can be used two different methods. First, the linear method in parallel to the first written over the entire length of tape running traces sequentially. The tape is moved in one direction until the end under the magnetic head over. When the end of the tape is reached, it changes direction and the band runs through to the other end under the magnetic head. This method is also called serpentine.

In contrast, in the helical scanning system described the tape diagonally from corner to corner. The magnetic head is inclined to the band here.

Popular tape formats are 4 mm, 8 mm, 1⁄4 inch (6.2 mm) and 1⁄2 inch (12.5 mm).