tape records

[utzoo!decvax!pur-ee!tgi]

One of the problems (at least on PDP11's) with very long tape records
(over about 32Kbytes) is that DEC's TU16 tape drive barfs internally
when writing larger than about 38-48Kbyte records.  We have both the
TU16 and the later TE16 drives, and both of them have this problem.
This was found to be an effective suppressant for the "big block"
syndrome...
p
--tgi