ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

MAGNETIC TAPE CASSETTES

A project has been proposed to standardize digital magnetic tape cassettes. These cassettes are used as a vehicle for the magnetic tape storage medium in a variety of keyboarddriven data transcription devices, such as those manufactured by Computer Access Systems, Computer Terminal Corporation, Data Action, IBM, Sanders, Sycor, Viatron, and others. In the absence of standardization a cassette designed to be used with the equipment of one manufacturer is not necessarily usable with the equipment of another. American National Standards Institute (formerly USASI, the United States of America Standards Institute) Committee X3—Computers and Information Processing—Standards Planning and Requirements Committee (SPARC) would like to form an ad hoc committee to advise on the appropriateness of this proposed project. The SPARC is particularly anxious to obtain on this ad hoc advisory committee representatives not only of equipment manufacturers but also of users. If you or your library is a user, either present or planned, of computer input equipment employing magnetic tape cassettes and would like to participate in this useful activity, your contribution will be very much appreciated. For more information contact either Charles A. Phillips, Chairman, ANSI X3, c/o BEMA/DPG, 235 East 42nd Street, New York 10017, or David L. Weisbrod, ALA Representative to ANSI X3, Box 1059 Yale Station, New Haven, Connecticut 06520.