From that wikipedia article: The above describes a typical transport system; however, manufacturers engineered many alternative designs. For example, some desi

From that wikipedia article: The above describes a typical transport system; however, manufacturers engineered many alternative designs. For example, some designs used a horizontal transport deck where the operator simply set the tape reel in the supply reel bay, closed the door and pressed the load button, then a vacuum system would draw the tape along the path and onto a take-up hub within the mechanism. Back in the day, I used a 9-track tape drive like this. It was quite the thing to watch it mount the tape. A while ago I found a video of it[0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS9QtC7FYiE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS9QtC7FYiE