Magnetic tape
medium used to store data in the form of magnetic fields
Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic storage made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany in 1928, based on the earlier magnetic wire recording from Denmark. Devices that use magnetic tape can record and play back audio, visual, and digital computer data.
Magnetic tape revolutionized sound recording and reproduction and broadcasting. It allowed radio, which had always been broadcast live, to be recorded for later or repeated airing. Since the early 1950s, magnetic tape has been used with computers to store data and is still used for backup purposes.
Magnetic tape begins to degrade after 10–20 years and, therefore, is not an ideal medium for long-term archival storage. The exception is data tape formats like LTO which are specifically designed for long-term archiving.
Information in magnetic tapes is often recorded in tracks, which are narrow, separate areas of information recorded magnetically onto the tape. Tracks are often parallel to the length of the tape, in which case they are known as longitudinal tracks, or diagonal relative to the length of the tape in helical scan.
The public source identifies “Magnetic tape” as medium used to store data in the form of magnetic fields. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Magnetic, tape and medium.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q193663. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1928.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Magnetic tape” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.