From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad
Richard Hess asked and Robert Hodge answered
> A person contacted me today with an approximately 5x8 inch magnetic > sheet with the IBM logo on it and two holes punched in that edge. It > appears to be magnetic material. We have no idea if it's audio (I > haven't seen it before) and I'm suspicious that it MIGHT be a word > processing format. It dates from the late 1960s and was apparently > part of some U.S. Navy documentation. > > A photo of it is posted at: http://www.donmarquis.org/ibm.pdf > > There are ten of these sheets in the collection. >
----- with the flimsyness apparent from the impression made by the paper clip I would agree with Robert that it is an audio format: it started as a sheet, was then spliced into a tube, and someone has slit it again for storage. I do not know which is the lesser evil: two sharp folds or two edges you have to align and fix with splicing tape. I think it would come down to binder resistance to peeling, so the slitting way is probably the safest after all.
If it had been stiffer, I would have opted for word processing. I was on a course in 1973 where we were taught an IBM system where a magnetic card the dimensions of a standard punched card was the storage. One line on the card corresponded to one normal line of typing, but there was a command - TRACK LINK that allowed you to use more lines for one line of text. I do not have the system name present.
Likewise the NCR CRAM card, which was a computer storage system from the late 1960s, was a stiffer magnetic card, which was about 3"x12".
Kind regards,
George