IBM 2401 MAGNETIC TAPE UNIT (1965)

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Introduced in 1965, the IBM 2401 Single Unit Magnetic Tape Drive was part of the 2400 series of reel-to-reel computer drives specifically designed for use with IBM's then new System/360 (third generation integrated circuit) family of computers. As with previous generations of ½ inch seven-track tape drives (IBM 726/727/729), the 2400 series used the same vacuum column / magnetic clutch tape drive system that created a buffer of loose tape designed to prevent tape breakage during the system tape’s fast data access starts and stops, but introduced a new nine-track tape system with higher data densities per tape and increased data access rates. The model shown here represents the single unit IBM 2401/5 tape drive, one of six variants in this 2401 series