Digital recording started during the 1950s with 21-track (1 inch) and 7-track (1/2 inch) open-reel tapes. This was followed by 9-track (1/2 inch) tapes in the 1960s, continuing through until the end of the century - the last 9-track tape drives being manufacturered in 2001.

Over this period of 50 years, large volumes of tapes were recorded. Many of these tapes are still in existence now but few companies have the capability of reading them.

DPTS still maintain 9-track, 21-track and 7-track tape drives. In fact, we were the last company to order a batch of 21-track drives from the manufacturer before they ceased production in the 1980s.

DPTS not only maintain these drives, but we also have the necessary interfaces to be able to connect these drives to modern PCs, thus enabling us to be able to use our up-to-date Diplomat™ transcription software to read data from the tapes.