karl@mstar.UUCP (Karl Fox) (01/14/88)
Since reading the uncomplimentary review of the 23Mb cartridge tape drive available for the UNIX-PC, I have been trying to find a way to make backups easier. Does anybody know if the floppy disk controller hardware (or software) can support floppy drives that can hold more than the vanilla 360Kb (more or less) drive that my 3B1 came with? If this has all been hashed out before, please reply via mail. -- Karl Fox, Morning Star Technologies, Inc. ...!cbosgd!mstar!karl
richard@islenet.UUCP (Richard Foulk) (01/16/88)
In article <696@mstar.UUCP> karl@mstar.UUCP (Karl Fox) writes: > Since reading the uncomplimentary review of the 23Mb cartridge tape > drive available for the UNIX-PC, I have been trying to find a way to > make backups easier. Does anybody know if the floppy disk controller > hardware (or software) can support floppy drives that can hold more > than the vanilla 360Kb (more or less) drive that my 3B1 came with? Some time back I saw some tape drives advertised for the ibm-pc that were supposed to plug into its floppy controller -- I think prices were less than $500. This seems like the best solution if it works, even if it's slow. Does anyone have any experiences or additional information to add about them? Thanks. -- Richard Foulk ...{dual,vortex,ihnp4}!islenet!richard Honolulu, Hawaii
wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew) (01/19/88)
In article <3787@islenet.UUCP>, richard@islenet.UUCP (Richard Foulk) writes: > Some time back I saw some tape drives advertised for the ibm-pc > that were supposed to plug into its floppy controller -- I think > prices were less than $500. > > This seems like the best solution if it works, even if it's slow. > Does anyone have any experiences or additional information to > add about them? I bought a QIC-40 format 40 meg tape drive for my PC/AT compatible machine. It has an electrical interface that is the same as a standard 5-1/4" disk drive. From a local vendor, the tape drive and PC driver software cost $350. The tape drive is made by a company called Archive. The tapes are DC-2000 mini cassettes. I found a place in Computer Shopper that sells the cassettes for $16.75. All in all , it is a very effective backup medium. It would be sort of neat to replace the floppy drive in a 3b1 with a tape drive. The difficult part would be sriting the driver to control the tape unit. It opens up a lot of possibilities, as software could be distributed on tape. Any volunteers to write the driver? --Bill
richard@islenet.UUCP (Richard Foulk) (01/21/88)
> I bought a QIC-40 format 40 meg tape drive for my PC/AT compatible > machine. It has an electrical interface that is the same as a > standard 5-1/4" disk drive. From a local vendor, the tape drive > and PC driver software cost $350. The tape drive is made by a > company called Archive. The tapes are DC-2000 mini cassettes. I > found a place in Computer Shopper that sells the cassettes for $16.75. > All in all , it is a very effective backup medium. Sounds great! Do you have the model number of the drive? > It would be sort of neat to replace the floppy drive in a 3b1 with > a tape drive. The difficult part would be sriting the driver to > control the tape unit. It opens up a lot of possibilities, as > software could be distributed on tape. Any volunteers to write the > driver? It may not be all that difficult to write a driver. I vaguely remember that that drive was dealt with on a sector by sector basis just like a floppy -- which would make sense if it uses a floppy interface. So assuming the current floppy driver doesn't have too small a limit on the possible sector or track count then it may not be necessary to write a new driver at all! This also assumes that the tape drive addresses sectors and tracks in the usual sequential order, as I think the floppy driver does now. If these assumptions are correct then you may be able to use tar, cpio and friends with the existing driver. Don't forget the 3B1 floppy driver is configurable as to sector and track count via a text file (at least that's the way I remember it). I'll have to dig into my comp.sys.att archives to find the info again. At that price I'm real tempted to experiment a bit. I almost bought the tape drive from AT&T but it seemed like such a ripoff, and much too small. If anyone sees anything wrong or misguided about what I've said here please chime in and point it out. Thanks. -- Richard Foulk ...{dual,vortex,ihnp4}!islenet!richard Honolulu, Hawaii
wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew) (01/25/88)
The drive I bought was made by a company called Archive. There are PC and AT models, but I don't have the specific model numbers handy here at home. It looks virtually the same as the drive unit sold by Irwin. The Archive drive comes as a kit with virtually no information other than high-level documenation. They expect you to do all interaction though a tape backup shell -- which really is OK for IBM pcs. I looked though a friend's owners manual for a Compaq '386 which uses a tape drive from Irwin. It seems that the various tape operations are controlled by issuing commands to seek to a certain track on what the host thinks is a floppy disk. Next week, I'll try to get a hold of some of the OEMs that make the little tape drives and try to find out if there is some defacto [or real] standard for the tape commands. I will also try to get a list of the commands. I've never had to write a driver for a floppy disk on any sort of machine, so this is all new to me. I think it would also be helpful if somebody could post what manufacture and type number the floppy controller chip in the Unix PC is, so that we can obatin the data sheets for it. Did anyone out there part with the $$$ for the tech manual? --Bill