Talk:Quarter-inch cartridge

Fidelipac or NAB Cart
I don't know the history of QIC and Fidelipac development. Is there any connection? Should there be a link to Fidelipac? Binksternet 20:09, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

QIC Consortium
I've added a rather blatant plug for the trade association. Despite being a mere independant developer I always found dealing with them to be a breath of fresh air- none of this "send us $10,000 to join and we'll send you the standards". Curious that QIC has survived so well while other standardisation attempts- I2O and AlphaWindows spring to mind- failed so utterly. MarkMLl 17:56, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Aaaaand now they've disbanded. 193.63.174.211 (talk) 08:04, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Linear vs serpentine
I noticed that somebody removed my early reference to QIC being serpentine, and would be interested in what other editors think. QIC quite simply isn't linear- linear refers to the original 7- and 9-track tapes, and should not be over-used simply to mean "not helical". MarkMLl 20:41, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Probably because they didn't understand what 'serpentine' meant. I can't say I do either, so I've tagged it that clarification is needed. 109.145.22.224 (talk) 13:22, 27 April 2012 (UTC)


 * "Serpentine" (shape) means 'S' shaped. But the tracks or not 'S' shaped.  They are linear, but there are many of them alongside each other across the width of the tape.  They do run alternately in opposite directions. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 16:11, 28 April 2012 (UTC)


 * It does not matter whether the word serpentine accurately describes the shape; it is an industry standard term. Serpentine is the exact term used for a particular QIC data format which writes bits serially on "track one going forward, then track two going backward", repeated as many times as there are tracks. (Karl Paulsen, Video and Media Servers: Technology and Applications, 2001.) All of the tape goes through the drive mechanism once per track, so serpentine format "increases wear and tear on both drive and tape." (Robert Bruce Thompson and Barbara Fritchman Thompson, PC Hardware in a Nutshell, 2003.) Hope that helps. Binksternet (talk) 17:25, 28 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Fairy 'nuff. 109.145.22.224 (talk) 14:27, 3 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I was unaware of this. If it's industry standard terminology, then that is good enough for it's inclusion.  But, maybe the reference that you give should be added to the article itself to support this usage? DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 09:04, 5 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, the references can and should be added. Binksternet (talk) 13:52, 5 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Yeah, it's not really intuitive, I'd have expected that for some strange variant on helical scanning where the head wobbled side to side as it went along for some reason (much like the deliberate timecode wobble of CDs and DVDs). The way tapes operate would suggest "zig-zag" or maybe "ping-pong", the latter definitely being a terms I've seen used elsewhere in computer science to describe linear back-and-forth motion between two points, and both suggesting straight lines and a sharp change of direction rather than a smooth curve.


 * That's not to dispute the fact of the term's existence or use, of course, just showing that its meaning may not be immediately obvious to a random layperson reading the article ;) 193.63.174.211 (talk) 08:08, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

More images
The Italian Wikipedia has a couple photos of QIC tapes. Austin Murphy (talk) 13:54, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Is it time yet?
To maybe rewrite this in a more past-tense style, seeing as "as of 2009" is five years ago already, and QIC is all but dead as a mass-market standard, having been long since overtaken by first the DLT and then the current-reigning-champ LTO 1/2 inch formats? The capacity never extended beyond 10GB (and DLT beyond about 160GB) and don't seem to be in active development (or even production?) any more, whereas modern LTO drives are up to 2.5TB and going great guns...

The only problem is it'd probably be quite hard to prove whether or not anyone's still using QICs in earnest (rather than as a hobby, or just babying an old creaky system along whilst waiting for the upgrade budget to roll over) ... but when I can buy a memory stick with greater capacity, higher speed and similar data security / longevity pretty much for pocket change, it seems unlikely. 193.63.174.211 (talk) 08:13, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
 * From MOS:TENSE it should stay present except for actual events. Invention, sales, marketing, and discontinuation are actual events. Otherwise, even if no actual devices are around (unlikely) documentation describing them will still be around for a while. Just because they are only used in museums, doesn't mean they are not used. Gah4 (talk) 21:29, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
 * From MOS:TENSE it should stay present except for actual events. Invention, sales, marketing, and discontinuation are actual events. Otherwise, even if no actual devices are around (unlikely) documentation describing them will still be around for a while. Just because they are only used in museums, doesn't mean they are not used. Gah4 (talk) 21:29, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

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neutral
The article mentions neutral tension. Not being so sure what it means, I don't believe it is correct. The tape is under just the right amount of tension to hold it in place. Tapes that haven't been used for a while are retensioned by running to the other end and back. Gah4 (talk) 18:36, 2 April 2020 (UTC)