[textfiles]

There is a fundamental resistance to tape technology that exists to this day as a result of all those troubles.

[EvanAnderson]

That's sad, but it mirrors my experience with commercial customers. Tape is so fiddly but the cost efficiency for large amounts of data and at-rest stability is so good. Tape is caught in a spiral of decreasing market share so industry has no incentive to optimize it.

Edit: Then again, I recently heard a podcast that talked about the relatively good at-rest stability of SATA hard disk drives stored outdoors. >smile<

[duskwuff]

Tape is also an extraordinarily poor option for a service like Internet Archive which intends to provide interactive, on-demand access to its holdings.