From

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_Tape_File_System wrote:

the Wikipedia page for Linear Tape File System[/url]:

Magnetic tape data storage has been used for over 50 years, but typically did not hold file metadata in a form easy to access or modify independent of the file content data. Often external databases were used to maintain file metadata (file names, timestamps, directory hierarchy) to hold this data but these external databases were generally not designed for interoperability and tapes might or might not contain an index of their content. In Unix-like systems, there is the tar interoperable standard, but this is not well-suited to allow modification of file metadata independent of modifying file content data - and does not maintain a central index of files nor provide a filesystem interface or characteristics.

LTFS technology was first implemented by IBM as a prototype running on Linux and Mac OS X during 2008/2009. [...]

I didn't notice any reference to previous examples in that page, but I did a search on books.google.com for "pc magazine tape drive letter" and there were some hits, so you might want to take a look. My concern would be that the combination of slow computer, slow tape drive and single-tasking operating system would make too painful to use. I imagine that LTFS has the benefit that you can have your tape access running in the background while you run something else, and the tapes and computers are faster now.

PC Magazine 18 Sep 1984 p128-34 talks about a combined hard drive and tape drive unit where the tape drive could be accessed like a floppy drive with a drive letter, but the reviewer said that copying a 10KB file when there were already other files on it took about 3 minutes, and creating a single 20KB file took 1 minute and 43 seconds, whereas it took 9 seconds on an IBM floppy drive!

@doshea Thanks for the info!

Sounds like it's best to stick with backup software

Thanks! The reason I asked because when I watched one of LGR's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2vc4ww1aVU
One of the comment says drive letter can be assigned to tape drive in DOS.

I found one from 1996 which supposedly still supports DOS and uses real-mode drivers even though it's for Windows 95 - "Tapedisk Professional" in PC Magazine 14 May 1996 p60 - https://books.google.com/books?id=NGNpFuAXu70 … pg=PA60&pg=PA60 I thought perhaps this particular software package was too esoteric to be found online, but I was wrong!

Looks the software supports up to Windows 98: https://web.archive.org/web/20040605205814/ht … w.tapedisk.com/