Should we reuse mag tapes? - really bit banging

[William L. Rupp]

I am no expert on the issue of reuse of magtapes, but it seems to me
that a great amount of use would cause such tapes to be stretched.  This
would probably be a more likely effect with computer tapes than with
audio because of the more frequent starts and stops.  I have also been
lead to believe that old tapes which have not been used in a long time
loose their elasticity.  I was afraid some reel-reel audio tapes
recorded by me in the early 1970s might have suffered that fate, but
I recently played some of them and they seem okay.  Of course, those
were audio and not computer tapes.