What are 4mm, 8mm, DAT, Exabyte, Helical Scan?
4mm and DAT are terms for the same thing. DAT is an acronym for Digital Audio Tape and is a higher data grade version of the tape that has become the standard in the music industry. DAT tape has a width of 4mm, so you may find the term 4mm DAT used frequently. 8mm tape is a medium that evolved from the video camera, and the company which pioneered the use of 8mm tape for computers was Exabyte Corp.. Helical Scan is the term used to describe the method by which data is written to and read from both 4mm and 8mm tapes – it denotes the way in which the data tracks are written diagonally across as opposed to along the length of the tape.
