IBM 7330

Tapes with character data (BCD) were recorded in even parity.

(709 manual p. 20) Aluminum strips were glued several feet from the ends of the tape to serve as beginning and end of tape markers.

Write protection was provided by a removable plastic ring in the back of the tape reel.

A ¾ inch gap between records allowed the mechanism time to stop the tape.

At 200 characters per inch, a single 2,400-foot tape could store the equivalent of some 50,000 punched cards (about 4,000,000 six-bit bytes).