MP Tapes, Inc. was incorporated in April 1996 to establish an entity to market the ECHO family of 1/2-inch cartridge tape drives in the Americas and Europe. These drives, which are compatible with the IBM 3480, 3490 and 3490E formats, were jointly designed by MEII and JVC. They are manufactured by the Victor Data Systems Division of JVC.

Because MP Tapes is owned by the design team from MEII and its employees, access is immediately available to resolve technical support problems, provide enhancement designs, as well as the earliest availability of the IBM 3590 compatible design.

The design team, headed by Peter Groel, has the longest continued history in the 1/2-inch cartridge technology arena. Beginning as founders of Aspen Peripherals in 1985 to develop the first OEM 3480-compatible drive, the team formed Mountain Engineering in 1989. In 1992, a merger was completed with Overland Data, Inc. which was terminated with the establishment of Mountain Engineering II, Inc. (MEII) in 1994.