Data storage media

General

Visually readable

Cards

Punch cards

Optically-read cards

Punch tape

Paper, plastic, mylar

Paper punch tape: 1 inch wide x 1000 feet long; 5-channel: 11/16 inch wide; 7-channel: 7/8 inch wide; 8-channel: 1 inch wide; 8-inch supply reel and 8.5-inch take-up reels (HP)

Optical tape

Computer Output Microfilm (COM)

Optical disks


Laserdisc
CD-ROM: Including writable varieties, and smaller-diameter discs
HP optical: 600 MB / 650 MB (512 bytes/sector)
HP optical double-capacity: 1.2 GB / 1.3 GB Rewritable or WORM (1024 bytes/sector)
MiniDisc
Blu-ray disc

Magnetic

Wire

Audio wire
Magnetic core memory

Tape

Reel-based

Half-inch tape:

IBM-compatible half-inch tape

Reel sizes: 10.5 inches

Lengths: 600, 1200, 2400 feet

Encodings: NRZI (7 ch or 9 ch)

Density: 200, 556 or 800 characters per inch; 1600 cpi (phase-encoded)

ANSI standard 6250 bpi Group Coded Recording (GCR) format

Cartridges

Half-inch tape:

Quarter-inch tape:

DC-600? (as used by HP 7908-style ‘High-Density’ drives): 16.7 MB / 150 ft or 67 MB / 600 ft; ?, ?, 16, 32 tracks; Metal bottom plate common on these?
QIC: QIC 525

Other or unknown size:

Audio-style tape: Lengths: 300 ft
HP DC-100 (9875A-style) 225kB cartridges: Uses random-access HP Standard Interchange Format (SIF); 2 physical tracks treated as single logical track; 140 ft, 1600 flux reversals/inch; Coding: Delta-distance
HP 98200A mini cartridge tapes: 32MB, 133MB; for HP 9145A drives
HP 88140SC tape cartidges: 16MB / 150 ft, 67MB / 600 ft,
LTO
VXA
MiniDV

8mm:

?

4mm (about eighth-inch?):

DAT: Digital Data Storage (DDS); DDS-1: 60 M / 1.3 GB, 90 M / 2.0 GB; DDS-DC?; DDS-2: 90 M / 2 GB / 4-8 GB compressed , 120 M / 4GB / 8-16 GB compressed; DDS-3: read from DDS-1, DDS-2, & DDS-3; HP used ‘DDS Media Recognition System’ to identify DDS tapes vs regular audio DAT tapes

Eighth-inch tape:

Microcassettes?: HP 82176A 131KB mini data cassettes?

DCLZ: Industry-standard data compression format?

Disks, fixed

IBM ‘Winchester’

Transfer rates: move to other article!

SCSI: Single-ended: 5 MB/s; ‘Narrow’: 10 MB/s; SCSI-2: 20 MB/s; ‘Fat/Wide Differential’? ‘Wide’? HVD? LVD?; 320 MB/s max???
HB-PB: HP Peripheral Bus??; Includes, e.g. SCSI

Disks, removable

Note: separate rigid vs. flexible?

Other

Syquest
Bernoulli
Iomega JAZZ

Rigid

HP 2.5 Mb cartridge: 12869A for HP 7900A et. al.
HP 9.8 Mb cardridge: 12940A for HP 7905A et. al.
HP 50 Mb Rigid Disk Pack
HP 120 Mb Rigid Disk Pack
HP 404 Mb Rigid Disk module

8" format

1.1 MB??
0.25 Mb double-sided
0.5 Mb single-sided
1.2 Mb double-sided

5.25" format

3.5" format

700KB?
800KB
1.4 MB DS/HD
SuperDisk
Zip disk

Move elsewhere

Teleprinter paper:

8 inch (203 mm) wide, 370 ft (113 m) long

Paper perforator tape:

(paper or aluminized mylar)

1 inch (25.4 mm) wide; 1000 ft (305 m) long
12-channel VFU tape?

Fan-fold continuous paper:

12 x 8.5 inch (305 x 215 mm); yields 11 x 8.5 inch (279 x 216 mm) sheets after de-perf.; 3600 sheets/box
9.5 x 11 inch (241 x 279 mm); yields 8.5 x 11 inch (216 x 279 mm) sheets after de-perf.; 2400 sheets/box
9.875 x 11 inch (251 x 279 mm); yields 8.5 x 11 inch (216 x 279 mm) 3-hole punched sheets after de-perf.; 3200 sheets/box
9.9 x 11 inch (251 x 274 mm) 80-column green-bar paper; 3200 sheets/box
8.5 x 11 inch (216 x 279 mm) 72-column paper; yields 7.5 x 11 inch (191 x 279 mm) sheets after de-perf; 3200 sheets/box
14.9 x 11 inch (378 x 279 mm) 132-column blue-bar paper; 2400 sheets/box

Large HP plotter paper:

280 x 420 mm (11 x 16.5 inch)
61 m (200 ft) long; 297 mm wide or 11 inch wide
280 x 420 mm with printed 250 x 380 mm grid
11 x 16.5 inch with printed 10 x 15 inch grid

HP plotter paper:

216 x 280 mm with printed 180 x 250 mm grid
8.5 x 11 inch with printed 7 x 10 inch grid

HP Thermal paper:

8.5 inch (216 mm) wide x 61 m (200 ft), optionally with 11 inch (279) cross-perferations
8.27 inch (210 mm) wide x 75 m (246 ft)
8.27 inch (210 mm) wide x 60 m (197 ft)
8.27 inch (211 mm) wide x 61 m (200 ft), optionally with 298.5 mm (11.75) A4-size cross-perferations
8.75 inch (222 mm) wide x 76 m (250 ft)

Adding machine paper:

2.25 inch (57.2 mm) wide x 250? feet

Optical mark reader cards:

37-column educational
40-column
80-column

Programming coding forms:

13.5 x 11 inches; 3-hole-punched; for Fortran, assembler, COBOL

HP magnetic program cards for calculators:

6 inch (152.4 mm)
10.5 inch (266 mm)

Stored charge

Removable

Capacitive consumer video disc?
SMARTMEDIA
MMC / SD
(Sony stick)

Fixed

SSDs
NVM SSDs

Other, fixed

Mask ROM: Either in an IC or as a macro multi-layer PCB
Core-based ROM: as used in first HP calculator
Holographic