Tape, however, is one medium that has been ‘forgotten’. Apart from the use of rudimentary memory systems, data was stored on tape in the early days of computing and no self respecting movie was without a shot of a computer room with tape drives searching for data.
Despite its apparent sidelining, tape storage continues to be developed, as evidenced by the latest announcement from IBM Research, which has managed to store a staggering 201Gbit on a square inch of magnetic tape created by Sony. 
As part of the announcement, IBM contrasted now with then – then being its first tape drive, the 726 Magnetic Tape Unit, pictured right. When launched more than 60 years ago, the device could store about 2Mbyte on reels of 0.5in wide tape. The latest technology can store 165million times more data on the same area as could that first tape unit.
But here’s an interesting thing. IBM says that a cassette made using its latest technology could store 330Tbyte of information. That’s equivalent to the text contained within 330million books. If you could make a bookshelf long enough to hold those books, it would stretch from the top to the bottom of Japan.
Should be enough for the holiday reading.
