Ampex 344 Reel to Reel Tape 7 Inch Reel Low Noise Recordable Tape

in the technology connections episode where we took a look at tape recording we briefly looked at this machine and how it operates but this is tech explorations so let's dive a little deeper and have a closer look in the original video which you can find here I showed you how you would use the machine but I didn't explain a whole lot about its parts and how it works so let's start with the basics this is of course magnetic tape and for this machine as well as many other consumer machines of the time the standard format was a 7 inch reel of quarter inch wide tape 1,200 feet was a common length and this would provide 30 60 or 120 minutes per side at seven and a half three and three-quarters and one in 7/8 inches per second respectively the machine has to interact with the tape in order to record content onto it or play it back we call the mechanical pieces that interact with the tape the