From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 21:28:00 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Wipe Swap File
Message-ID: <m0tdmLW-0008zuC@pacifier.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


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At 11:23 AM 1/20/96 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote:
>At 3:38 PM 1/20/96, Dr. Dimitri Vulis wrote:
>>tallpaul@pipeline.com (tallpaul) writes:


Interestingly, we wrote almost identical responses to Dmitri, although 
admittedly you won the "time race."

Is it:
1.  "Great minds run on the same path"?
or
2.  "Fools think alike"   <G>


>3. A time-varying field is preferred. Bulk erasers work this way, by
>plugging into an a.c. socket and generating a time-varying field. And even
>these are getting harder to use to erase video tapes, for example, due to
>the high coercivity of modern media. Most folks I know no longer even try
>to bulk erase tapes.

Video tapes, yes.  Audio cassette tapes, maybe.

However, they should still be useful for floppies, for two reasons:

1.  Distance to the media is far smaller than to the average distance to the 
inside of a videotape cartridge.  (floppy cases are thinner.)

2.  The volume of material to be erased is FAR smaller than a typical 
videotape cartridge.  The middle of the tape of a 1/2" wide videotape spool is 
self-shielded by at least 1/4" of videotape; a 3.5" floppy disk is shielded 
only by distance.  (actually, the sliding doo-hickey over 3.5" floppies 
probably acts as a shield, too.




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