The long-ago set of programs I wrote to read 9-track tapes on a PC processed physical tape blocks, in binary, and added a header to each block before writing it on the CD. Another program could read the CD and write a new 9-track tape, if needed. My program accepted a double tape mark to mean end-of-tape. With the tapes/data involved this was not an exposure, although I understood that it might create problems in other situations, If I detected blocks that might be labels, I noted their contents in a log record file.
This was in the early 1990s and the objective was to preserve information on old tape reels. The customer concern was the potential error characteristics of the old tapes, and that turned out to be a substantial issue. As best I remember, there were very very few requests to write a new version of a tape, but it could be done ---- I assume for potential legal reasons, etc, etc. I cannot remember exact details and I cannot find a copy of the programs. I do remember that one bit in my header records could indicate a data error while reading the source tape block and the block copy on the CD contained whatever was actually read, error and all. The design would be different today, of course, and a different format might be needed if the old data was actually to be processed on a regular basis. Bill ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
