Fifty years of IBM innovation with information storage on magnetic tape

On May 21, 1952, the International Business Machines Corporation announced the IBM Model 726 Tape Unit with the IBM Model 701 Defense Calculator, marking the transition from punched-card storage to digital storage on flexible magnetic tape. That bold introduction was the beginning of what is now a 50-year history of invention that has seen remarkable advances in the storage of information on flexible magnetic ribbons ten times thinner than a human hair and capable of storing more than 100000 times more data in the same volume as the first reel of tape introduced in 1952. This historical perspective is dedicated to the people who made that first tape drive possible and to those who continue that tradition in the Removable Media Storage Solutions (RMSS) team of the International Business Machines Corporation Tape Development Laboratory, headquartered in Tucson, Arizona.