EDP Tape - Performance and Reliability - Past, Present and Future

Abstract

This report was prepared by the Electronics Division, Federal Supply Service of the General Services Administration and is intended to share with all interested parties, the information and experiences with EDP Computer Tape gathered by the GSA since 1966, when it assumed the responsibility to support procurement of these items for all Federal agencies. It is hoped that the information contained herein will be of benefit to the tape-using community and will lead to a better understanding of the Government's role in providing high quality computer tape to meet current and future data storage applications. The General Services Administration's active involvement in the program to supply high quality computer tape to Government agencies was initiated through the development of Interim Federal Specification W-T-0051. The specification was based upon technical requirements received from the tape-using community and inputs supplied by the tape industry. GSA Laboratory facilities are utilized for product qualification testing, specification development testing and quality assurance testing. It is from all of these sources that the data presented herein was gathered. To establish some kind of perspective, it should be noted that these results are representative of the over 25,000 reels of computer tape sampled, tested and evaluated annually by GSA in support of annual procurement volumes of approximately 1 million reels. In addition to presenting quantitative data showing how tape quality levels have increased over the past four years, the report also addresses past problems and recent improvements, and further attempts to identify those remaining areas in which the tape industry must concentrate its future developments.