 Early cartridges were available before personal computers had affordable disk drives, and could be used as random access devices, automatically winding and positioning the tape, albeit with access times of many seconds.Experienced computer gamers could tell a lot by listening to the loading noise from the tape.In 1984 IBM introduced the 3480 family of single reel cartridges and tape drives which were then manufactured by a number of vendors thru at least 2004.