Fragment 41 of 72 · drawer 04
Cassette time as address
An original diagram of sequential media where the path to later data is made from earlier, unwanted tape.
- Accession
- MW-F-041
- Representative period
- Interpretive storage diagram, 1980s
- Drawer
- Diagrams & specimens
- Certainty
- high
Cassette time as address
Interpretive storage diagram, 1980s
Observed surface
00:00 LEADER ── 02:18 PROGRAM A ── 07:44 PROGRAM B ── 15:02 END
To reach PROGRAM B: transport through everything before 07:44.
A counter can suggest location but does not create random access.
Implied procedure
The medium exposes one dimension and one direction at a time.
Fast-forward shortens listening but still spends physical tape movement and risks overshooting the boundary.
Interpretive residue
On sequential storage, a location is a duration from somewhere else.
The diagram replaces a file tree with a journey.
Accountability record
Evidence beneath the reconstruction.
These institutional sources support the mechanism or historical practice interpreted above. They do not contain this reconstructed record, its wording, or its invented values.
- Computer History Museum · ongoing Memory & Storage: Timeline of Computer History A broad chronology of magnetic tape, disks, cassettes, removable media and solid-state storage. Open institutional record ↗
- Commodore Business Machines · 1984 C2N / 1530 / 1531 Service Manual Period service documentation for the domestic cassette mechanism and its approximately 300-baud data path. Open institutional record ↗