To write a software or document distribution on magnetic tape for shipment. Has nothing to do with physically cutting the medium! "Cutting a disk" has also been reported as live usage. Related slang usages are mainstream business's "cut a check", the recording industry's "cut a record", and the military's "cut an order". All of these usages reflect physical processes in obsolete recording and duplication technologies. The first stage in manufacturing an old-style vinyl record involved cutting grooves in a stamping die with a precision lathe. More mundanely, the dominant technology for mass duplication of paper documents in pre-photocopying days involved "cutting a stencil", punching away portions of the wax overlay on a silk screen. More directly, paper tape with holes punched in it was an important early storage medium. [<a href="">Jargon Filea>]

Prepared tape used in covering the ends of wire where stripped for making joints. After the stripped ends of two pieces are twisted together, and if necessary soldered and carefully cleaned of soldering fluid, they may be insulated by being wound with insulating tape. The tape is variously prepared. It may be common cotton or other tape saturated with any insulating compound, or may be a strip of gutta percha or of some flexible cement-like composition.