sic@ritcsh.UUCP (Eric A. Neulight) (01/25/89)
Ok, I have posted this before, but what the hay. Enough people have
inquired again.
The documentation on the proposed standard QIC (Quarter Inch Cartidge)
Tape Drive interfaces are publicly available as such. It is an ANSI
standard, and if you speak the right magic to the right ear at ANSI in
New York City, they will give you the number of a management company in
California that has been placed in charge of distributing such docs.
As far as I understand, they are available to anyone for the price of a
phone call (yes, they are FREE, I think -- whot a bogin!). The company
is Freeman Associates Management Consulting at 331 East Carrillo Street
in Santa Barbara, CA.
So if you are rightfully POed at the jerks at some anti-social company
who will not disclose one iota of info on their super top-secret
proprietary _QIC_standard_ tape drive. Most likely they at least
partially followed the QIC standard and you should be able to get
most of the functionality out of the drive, save any non-standard
extra features they might have added.
Glad to be of service. Hope this stuff helps.
==============================================================================
CLAIMER: Well -- I wrote it! Eric Alan Neulight
"Nothing is Impossible -- Just Impractical." Electrical Engineering
"For every Lock, there is a Key." Computer Science House
"INSANITY is just a state of mine." Rochester Institute of Technology
BITNET: EAN4762@RITVAX UUCP: ...!rutgers!rochester!rit!ritcsh!sic
==============================================================================jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) (01/28/89)
In article <1434@ritcsh.UUCP> sic@ritcsh.UUCP (Eric A. Neulight) writes: >Ok, I have posted this before, but what the hay. Enough people have >inquired again. > >The documentation on the proposed standard QIC (Quarter Inch Cartidge) >Tape Drive interfaces are publicly available as such. It is an ANSI >standard, and if you speak the right magic to the right ear at ANSI in >New York City, they will give you the number of a management company in >California that has been placed in charge of distributing such docs. My understanding is that the QIC standards are not yet formally endorsed by any standards committee (ANSI, ISO, IEE, etc.) but are just some "standards" agreed to by various manufacturers. As such, it seems folks are more willing to bend the rules a bit when designing interfaces. (*SOME* of the QIC standards have been submitted to ANSI.) >As far as I understand, they are available to anyone for the price of a >phone call (yes, they are FREE, I think -- whot a bogin!). The company >is Freeman Associates Management Consulting at 331 East Carrillo Street >in Santa Barbara, CA. The address: Freeman Associates Management Consulting 311 East Carrillo Street Santa Barbara, CA 93101 (805) 963-3853 I called them a while back, and received a four page listing of QIC standards. Since then I've called a number of times to get specific documents and have not heard a word from them. Well, ya gets what ya pays for. Jim Wright