A simulator for the ac-biased magnetic-recording channel

A digital computer simulator for the ac-biased magnetic-recording channel is described. It allows the performance of a complete recording system to be assessed in the presence of the impairments normally found in such a system: fluctuation of head-to-medium distance while writing and/or reading, linear and nonlinear distortion, medium inhomogeneity and noises. The amplitude and phase-transfer functions of the biased recording channel produced by the simulator have been found in excellent agreement with measurements taken on an instrumentation recorder.