In most tape based systems the pinch roller dies before the main drive belts have a chance to go.
In some cases you can use a rubber 'reconditioner' to make it work in the short term. But it will never work out in the long term.
Most people assurme that the real to real system drives the tape system, but it is the pinch roller that truly controlles the tapes passing speed on the head. If that slips or has nasty rubber reconditioners on it you will fail to read your data. This comes from PET level data cassette dealings. They used 2400 baud incoding then, the later CPU's used 4800 and that made it even more criticial. If your pinch roller fails the test your data will fail.
I had a cassette that was read more than 1000 times, but the reading drive had to be cared for on a monthly basis. Basic head cleaning, mostly useless. And a roller cleaning, had to be done.
In most tape based systems the pinch roller dies before the main drive belts have a chance to go.
In some cases you can use a rubber 'reconditioner' to make it work in the short term. But it will never work out in the long term.
Most people assurme that the real to real system drives the tape system, but it is the pinch roller that truly controlles the tapes passing speed on the head. If that slips or has nasty rubber reconditioners on it you will fail to read your data. This comes from PET level data cassette dealings. They used 2400 baud incoding then, the later CPU's used 4800 and that made it even more criticial. If your pinch roller fails the test your data will fail.
I had a cassette that was read more than 1000 times, but the reading drive had to be cared for on a monthly basis. Basic head cleaning, mostly useless. And a roller cleaning, had to be done.
-Cecil
-Cecil