Computer Equals Tapedrive: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:IBM 2401 tape drives at the Computer History Museum.jpg|thumb]]
In older movies and TV shows, made before the invention of the personal computer, all computers had large nine-track reel-to-reel magnetic tape drives, which were always moving back and forth. They usually had banks of blinking lights as well. Most viewers were left with the impression that the tape drive ''was'' the computer.
This was primarily done because the computer itself is very visually uninteresting when in operation. [[Rule of Perception|When a Tape Drive is operating, there is obviously something going on.]]
No longer as common, since in [[Real Life]], almost everybody has stopped using the old-fashioned 9-track mag tape reel because of size and cost, e.g. a 6250 bpi, 1600 foot tape could hold, at most, about 75 megabytes of data, and costs about US$12. By
In modern works, this trope shows up only in period pieces set before approximately 1975, or when dealing with technology built before then. Otherwise, expect this to show up in works with [[Schizo-Tech]], [[Retraux]], or with themes of a [[Retro Future]]
Superseded by [[Computer Equals Monitor]], since modern LTO tape drives don't look anything like those tape drives of old and are so uncommon that not many people have seen one. Not to mention that the lack of activity indicators on one and the inability to see the tape reels spinning makes it a very boring subject to film.
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== Anime and Manga ==
* In ''[[
== Comic Books ==
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* In ''[[The Italian Job]]'' (1969), all the traffic lights in Turin were controlled by computer. Our heroes caused a massive traffic jam by sneaking into the computer center and hanging a magtape that made the whole system go haywire. Presumably the control software read the tape automatically, as no other interaction was needed.
** It shouldn't have worked anyway - when we see the tape being read, we see that it's actually [[Surrounded
* In the film ''[[Fail Safe]]'' a (for then) large mainframe computer is focused upon, with the tape drives ''running backwards''. When tapes were used for main storage, not just backup, changing direction and rewriting part of a tape was common.
== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[Star Trek:
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' in the 1960s, of course, although some episodes set in the future eschew the tape drives for more blinking lights. An [[Egregious]] example in the First Doctor serial ''The War Machines'': WOTAN, the [[Master Computer]], is expectedly chock full of blinking lights and tape drives - but ''so are the titular war machines'', which were built on the mastercomputer's specifications. But that's not the best bit. The war machines, which were largish mini tanks that roamed the streets of London, had the tape drives mounted on the outside.
* From ''[[Thunderbirds]]'', Thunderbird 5, the manned observation satellite from which poor, neglected John Tracy monitored the world's radio airwaves for distress calls, used reel-to-reel memory exclusively.
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== Music ==
* The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m8IOD-wk9g music video] for the song "Computer Games" by [[
== Video Games ==
* The memory banks from the videogame ''[[Evil Genius (
** Also somewhat justified in that those items are pure memory banks, and the actual computing is done with a separate item looking more like a large desk (think N.A.S.A. computers in ''Apollo 13'')
* Surprisingly, most videogames - even current ones - where you get to see large, room-sized server farms (or mainframes, or whatever) seem to have at least one instance of a spinning tape animated texture slapped on a large block of metal.
** It's justified in ''[[
* The computers in ''[[Fallout]]'' are often found with tape drives. In ''[[Fallout 2]]'', these are described as being very modern real-to-reel devices. Justified, given the slightly twisted alternate history the games exist in.
* Discussed and inverted in ''[[Disco Elysium]]'' where computers specifically doo ''not'' use tape, at least anymore. Tape based computers were invented just as a doomed [[Dirty Communists|communist]] revolution would seize them leading them to become [[Lost Technology]] and to the proliferation of radiocomputers instead. It’s a matter of in universe [[What Could Have Been]] to Trant, who admires the war torn offices where the tape computers were developed with his son.
== Web Comics ==
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== Machinima ==
* Lampshaded in ''[[
== Western Animation ==
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* In ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'', The computer system that stores {{spoiler|The minds of the Venture brothers}} is apparently run on tape.
** In another episode, {{spoiler|malevolent supercomputer}} M.U.T.H.eR. is on a reel-to-reel mainframe. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded when M.U.T.H.eR.]] {{spoiler|tries to launch a nuclear missile}}; while everyone is panicking, Pete White mentions that a computer that runs on such an ancient mainframe (and uses a dial-up modem) can't act very quickly.
* In one of the numerous ''[[
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