Tape records and the 2048 byte limit

[utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!unix-wizards]

>From decvax!duke!bcw at Berkeley Sun Nov  1 19:49:47 1981
The 2048 byte limit was originally the limit on some ancient
tape drive of the IBM 704 series vintage (I don't remember
offhand which one or even if it was an IBM drive).  It got
written into the ANSI standard tape format as a file inter-
change (not hardware) limit;  many installations allow the
creation of larger records with the caveat that the result
may not conform to the ANSI standard and therefore may not
be readable on more restrictive sites.

Most modern hardware allows 32-64KB per tape block.

	-- Bruce