Kennedy model 9400 magnetic tape transport
UvA Computer Museum catalogue nr 98.06
This tapedrive, using half-inch tape on a reel has been the
industry standard for more than 30 years. The capacity was of order
40 Mb (2400 ft tape, 1985). Since then, it has been replaced by
faster and more compact tape systems with much larger capacity.
Like it already was the case with 8" floppies, punched cards and
paper tapes, we are now asked to play magtapes for transfering
their contents to modern media. We used Kennedy drives for some time for this purpose. Unfortunately the drives' vacuum systems are difficult to maintain, at least without special equipment and training. Today a CDC Keystone drive is used.
This machine has been used at the Computer Science
Department, University of Amsterdam. The picture is reproduced from
the user's manual.
