What is the full form of IRG?

Answer 1

Tape storage is primarily used for archival storage. The recording medium is a thin polyester tape between 0.38cm and 2.54cm wide, about .025mm thick and coated with magnetic particles. The tape is wound on wheels of various sizes. Data is recorded sequentially, one byte after the other, from the beginning of the tape to its end. Access times for tape storage are much slower than for floppy diskettes or hard disks.The following diagram shows how data is stored on the disk. The read/write head is comprised of several tracks, 9 tracks being very common. This means nine bits are recorded across the width of the tape simultaneously. Using nine tracks, one byte of data plus a parity bit is recorded at a time (vertically). Characters are grouped together to form a record (often called a block). Each record is separated from the next record by a blank inter-record gap (IBG). Each record is preceded by a header field. The IBG allows the software to position the tape for recording or playing at specific record numbers. Physical markers are used to indicate the ends of the tape, and may be metallic foil, clear plastic or software markers encoded on the tape. Software encoding uses BOT(beginning of tape) and EOT (end of tape) indicators. IRG=IBG