It was definitely possible, and some of us remember the joys of spooling data from tape before we could use it. :)

And if I recall, this was a built-in of the tape-drive itself, which could be used on multiple different systems, and so the triple-sync being used to rewind wasn't Risc/OS specific; I remember using the same tape-deck later on Linux and Irix machines, same ol' sync command worked every time.

I can still hear the whirr in my mind ..