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Beginning To Bug Me!

I live in the northwest and I'm wondering if any one else has had this same problem: I get lazy and sometimes leave audio and videotapes lying around for a while-- when I go to pick them up, sometimes they have little bugs living in them. Or sometimes dead little bugs in them.

I didn't think plastic and metal coatings would be attractive to

*anything* but these parasitic little suckers seem to come out of nowhere and take up residence in the tape cassettes.

I know I probably should put tapes back in their cases and things, but I'm curious; does anyone know if these insects are something of a typical problem?

Ron

Reply to
Ron
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Perhaps they are drawn to moisture that condenses on the nonabsorbent surface of the media?

Reply to
D Yuniskis

Mail some to your state entomologist and find out what they are and how to eliminate them. Maybe there is a new plastic bug.

Reply to
Van Chocstraw

Hmmm... I think if I'm too lazy to put the tapes up properly, I'm probably too lazy to walk to the mail box. :-)

Still, maybe these little buggers give new meaning to the name "tape worm?"

Ron

Reply to
Ron

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24

Grace Hopper is responsible for the term 'bug' for a computer fault. The original 'bug' was a moth, which caused a hardware fault in the Mark I. Hopper was the first person to 'debug' a computer.

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Reply to
N_Cook

The term bug predates Admiral Hopper's use, although she probably helped to make it more mainstream. Even the semi-famous log entry for the day hints that the term was in use, although the cause wasn't usually insects.

One reference, from the Jargon File, including an image of the moth in question preserved for posterity:

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--
Andrew Erickson

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot
lose."  -- Jim Elliot
Reply to
Andrew Erickson

Or zoom all the way to 2010..

Tapes?!

I thought CDroms were already obsolete for MP3's and such -

(please don't tell me it's 8 track)

Unless you are a museum curator :-)

OK I admit - last year I handled a few ye olde VCR tapes with homevideos of my children - to transfer them to DVD. I had to dig up the VCR recorder from the attic - and use it before it seizes.

Come to think of it - the oldest VCR tape is over 25 years now, and still playable. Wonder if the DVD will last that long..

Reply to
Blarp

Cockroaches will eat/live anything/anywhere. Time to fumigate, and clean house.

Reply to
Klaatu

Not certain of the DVDs but I have some CDs from April '83 that still play fine. At work I've worked with 2" quad videotape (trademark Ampex Corp) from 1969.

G=B2

Reply to
stratus46

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