Contact tape recording with a flat head contour

A plain flat 'row-bar' of commercial thin-film disk heads was evaluated and found to be suitable for high speed and high track- and linear-density tape recording. After more than 2000 hours of running in contact at 8 m/s no output degradation was observed. An upper limit of 4 nm was placed on head wear. Output, hence head-tape spacing was seen to be independent of the tape speed from 0.5 to 8 m/s. A mechanical model of the system shows that a self-acting negative air bearing (suction) is responsible for the stability of the interface.