“I can take it out now,” Carlos said. “The rest of the terminal will work – it’ll just give you a warning letting you know that the drive isn’t attached. But if you just don’t put any holotapes in then it won’t run.”
“Really? Taking it out ain’t gonna make the rest of it worse? How does that work? I’m sorry for all the questions, I just….. don’t really get any of this, y’know? I’m tryin’ to learn though.”
“No, actually, a holotape driver isn’t necessary,” Carlos explained. “A lot of models come with them, but you don‘t necessarily need one for every-day function. It’ll just give you an error message that you can dismiss and continue on with the memory that’s already on the terminal.”
The Perfect Scientist 