Patent ID: 7787204

Claim:
A method to encode linear position information in a sequential data storage medium, comprising the steps of: encoding (N) sequential servo patterns along a portion of said sequential data storage medium, wherein (N) is greater than 1; wherein each of said plurality of servo patterns encodes a first longitudinal position (LPOS) bit and a second LPOS bit, and wherein said (N) servo patterns in combination encode a total of (2N) LPOS bits; wherein each of said encoded (N) LPOS servo patterns comprise: a first burst comprising a first plurality of pulses; a second burst comprising a second plurality of pulses; a third burst comprising a third plurality of pulses; a fourth burst comprising a fourth plurality of pulses; wherein the spacings between said first plurality of pulses comprising said first burst, in combination with the spacings between said second plurality of pulses comprising said second burst, encode said first LPOS bit; wherein the spacings between said third plurality of pulses comprising said third burst, in combination with the spacings between said fourth plurality of pulses comprising said fourth burst, encode said second LPOS bit; wherein, for each of said (N) servo patterns, said first LPOS bit comprises an information bit and said second LPOS bit comprises a parity bit; further comprising the step of correcting any sequence of 8 consecutive LPOS bits using a Reed-Solomon error correction code.