This review of the saturation magnetic recording process is tutorial in approach. The emphasis throughout is on the development of intuitive understanding as well as the development of a first-order analysis (good to 10-20 percent) of the process. By means of treating two different functional approximations to the magnetization distribution in the medium, linear and arctangent, it is shown that the peak output voltage and half-amplitude pulse width of a transition are nearly independent of the distribution. Thus good estimates of these important system parameters may be made without reliance upon a specific model. It is made apparent that head-to-medium spacing and effective-medium thickness are of dominant importance in system density considerations.