Optical tape

Optical tape is a medium for optical storage generally consisting of a long and narrow strip of plastic onto which patterns can be written and from which the patterns can be read back. It shares some technologies with cinema film stock and optical discs, but is compatible with neither. In the 1990s, it was projected that optical tape would be a commonly used, high-capacity, high-speed computer data storage format. At least one working system and several prototypes were developed, but as of 2007, none of these technologies is widely used.