I spent a lot of my early days threading CDC 60x and 65x tape drives. There, the supply reel, as you face the drive, is on your right side and takeup is on the left. It's easy to thread--I could thread up a drive in 15 seconds or so.
But IBM and, it seems, much of the rest of the world swaps the reel positions, so that the tape unspools and is taken up on the *inside* of the facing reels. Why is this? The CDC positioning is simple and darned near foolproof. I realize with the rise of auto-threaders that the subject is moot, but I'm still curious. --Chuck
