The funny DECtape is actually a variant of the original

LINCtape. According to Wesley Clark, DEC tried to "improve"

the LINCtape system, which mechanically, was wonderfully

simple and elegant. The DEC version had pressure fingers and

tape guides to force alignment as well as huge DC servo

motors and complex control circuitry. These literally

shredded the tape to bits if not carefully adjusted, and

required frequent cleaning to remove all the shedded tape

oxide. That was amazing, because the tape had a micro-thin

plastic layer OVER the oxide to protect it. What happened was

that all the forced alignment stuff caused shredding at the

edge.