Automatic preferred tape track selection for bi-directional tape

Abstract

A bidirectional tape transport for tapes stored in cassettes with a control for starting the drive in a preferred direction when a cassette is inserted in the apparatus. For reversing the direction of tape movement, the polarity of the supply voltage to the motor is reversed and the tape drive and the drive train to the reel spindles are reversed in such a way as always to drive the take-up spindle. Such operations are achieved by energizing a reversing solenoid by an electrical pulse, which may be produced manually or automatically by a reel rotation detection circuit. To start the tape in the preferred direction, when a cassette is inserted, a two-way switch which senses the state of the bidirectional drive is used to connect a capacitor to a flip-flop when the switch is in a non-preferred position corresponding to the non-preferred state of the drive; the flip-flop produces a pulse which energizes the reversing solenoid and reverses the drive so that it operates the tape in the preferred direction, so that the tape is driven in the preferred direction regardless of which direction it happened to be driven when the apparatus was stopped.