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> worry about what data might be on them....
> Failing that, does anyone have any other good ideas on how to dispose
> of the things? Breaking the cartridges by hand etc. is a non-starter,
> there are too many of them.

Hand-held tape degaussers are made specifically for the purpose of
erasing tapes for re-use. They were pretty common in the audio and video
recording worlds a couple of decades ago, and I do seem to recall having
seen ones for computer backup tapes as well.

If you use one, however, you'll want to check very carefully that it
will be powerful enough to actually have some effect on your particular
tapes. There's a massive range in coercivity between various tape
formulations, and a degausser designed for old-fashioned ferric oxide
audio tapes may have no effect at all on a more modern computer tape.
You might have better luck with a video tape degausser, particularly if
your tapes are one of the formats based on video tape, such as Exabyte
was, if I recall correctly.

Curt Sampson         <>         +81 90 7737 2974
telephone.  --Bjarne Stroustrup

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