The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 20, 2005
Filed:
Aug. 07, 2002
Richard Allen Gill, Arvada, CO (US);
Roger D. Hayes, Denver, CO (US);
Keith Gary Boyer, Broomfield, CO (US);
Richard Allen Gill, Arvada, CO (US);
Roger D. Hayes, Denver, CO (US);
Keith Gary Boyer, Broomfield, CO (US);
Storage Technology Corporation, Louisville, CO (US);
Abstract
An asynchronous method for locating individual blocks of data in a tape drive, without having to read the blocks of data is provided. The invention comprises placing an ID mark adjacent to the data blocks and inter-block gaps on the tape. The ID mark contains a small amount of information about the next respective data block on the tape. The ID mark is encoded such that the same detection mechanism that detects the inter-block gap can also retrieve the ID mark information, without having to process the entire block of data associated with a particular ID mark. The ID mark is symmetrical such that it can be detected and decoded in the forward and backward direction, allowing the tape drive to find a desired block of data by searching either forward or backward, even when the magnetic tape uses a unidirectional data format.