lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (07/14/90)
In <7588@gollum.twg.com>, david@twg.com (David S. Herron) writes: >In _Amazing_Amiga_'s latest product guide a VCR based backup device >is listed (price: $199). There's a note saying they weren't able >to contact the company, and sho'nuff you call 'em up and ya get a >no-such-phone-number message. They're in Vancouver, BC .. so are >they related to any of the Vancouver people on the net? Looks like AC went with info they previously had. I don't know the exact state of their efforts at this time, but I haven't heard much about it, and figure it probably won't make it to market. If you want to check for sure, you might try calling Dave Allen at (604) 886-4545. The other things you might keep in mind are that it would have been VERY slow, and would have had the (to me) unforgivable characteristic of doing ONLY image backups. >I'm in the market for a backup device. I have an A2000 with A2090a, >and in the other corner of the room is an AT&T Unix PC. I need to >backup both systems and currently the only media is floppies and >since I have yet to do a floppy backup of either system I probably >never will. > >The possibilities I have come up with are: [some options deleted] >-- Used Sun3 or Sun386i system with a QIC-60 drive. QIC-60? Hmm.... QIC standards are a little confusing... Older Suns use a tape drive capable of 60 megabyte storage on 600 ft. tapes. The drive itself is a QIC-36 unit (QIC-36 defines an interface from controller to drive). It uses an Emulex MT-02 controller that adapts SCSI to QIC-36, and records in QIC-11 or QIC-24 format (these define the encoding of the data on tape). The important thing is that the combination of controller and drive look like SCSI from the outside, and can be attached to a SCSI host adapter. I am currently using one of these on my Amiga, with backup and restore software of my own design. I also have a TAPE: handler that allows me to use tar to access the drive. The handler was written by Markus Wandel, but I have no idea what he plans for it, and don't know if it will become available or not. My software will be distributed at some future date, I suspect. The only thing holding me back right now is the potential support nightmare as folks try it on all manner of controllers/drives. It does currently work on 2090, 2090A, A3000, 2091, and HardFrame, and with a command line option, on at least one GVP host adapter. It's simple, with no fancy options, but does the job. >According to the tech support at Creative Computers (Ad in AmigaWhirled) >claims that the SQ/44 won't work on my 2090A. This sounds *really*WEIRD* >because: 1) it's just a disk and 2090A's control disks just fine, 2) I >vaguely recall seeing a posting here saying they'd *put* a SQ/44 on a 2090A. You should see if you can try it. I have heard mixed reports about this combination. >I can believe the GVP WT/150 won't work on the 2090A since that's the >kind of people GVP are :-). (And, besides, to get a tape drive into >the SCSI drivers would require different SCSI drivers than what comes >with the 2090A since they're specifically munged up for disk drives.) Not quite. There is a bug with the 2090(A) driver that can be worked around in a program to allow SCSIDirect. This lets you use it without replacing the driver. >It appears my best options are these: [options deleted] If you can manage to get hold of a SCSI tape drive, let me know, and I'll ship you off a copy of my programs to try out. -larry -- The raytracer of justice recurses slowly, but it renders exceedingly fine. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
david@twg.com (David S. Herron) (07/15/90)
In article <715.26908ABC@weyr.FIDONET.ORG> David.Plummer@f70.n140.z1.FIDONET.ORG (David Plummer) writes: >Digital music can be recorded on VCRs, and with some error checking. In _Amazing_Amiga_'s latest product guide a VCR based backup device is listed (price: $199). There's a note saying they weren't able to contact the company, and sho'nuff you call 'em up and ya get a no-such-phone-number message. They're in Vancouver, BC .. so are they related to any of the Vancouver people on the net? I'm in the market for a backup device. I have an A2000 with A2090a, and in the other corner of the room is an AT&T Unix PC. I need to backup both systems and currently the only media is floppies and since I have yet to do a floppy backup of either system I probably never will. The possibilities I have come up with are: -- GVP with either SyQuest/44 or WangTek 150. -- Corwyn International WangTek 150. -- Bridge card so that I can get access to cheaper PeeCee peripherals. In particular the Colorado Memory Systems floppy-based tape unit. -- The Colorado Memory Systems thing, but ported either to the Amiga or the Unix PC. -- Used Sun3 or Sun386i system with a QIC-60 drive. -- Either SQ/44 or WT/{60,150} hooked to 2090A and write my own driver. According to the tech support at Creative Computers (Ad in AmigaWhirled) claims that the SQ/44 won't work on my 2090A. This sounds *really*WEIRD* because: 1) it's just a disk and 2090A's control disks just fine, 2) I vaguely recall seeing a posting here saying they'd *put* a SQ/44 on a 2090A. I can believe the GVP WT/150 won't work on the 2090A since that's the kind of people GVP are :-). (And, besides, to get a tape drive into the SCSI drivers would require different SCSI drivers than what comes with the 2090A since they're specifically munged up for disk drives.) The CI WT/150 system will work on every SCSI out there -- confirmed over the phone this afternoon. But they're not on the market yet. And in any case they're very pricey. [Aside: In the PC market place I see that WT/60's run ~$350 street price. Therefore I suspect the list price on the drive is ~ $500. The CI WT/150 drive is (listed in A/A's price guide) list price of $1350. Quite a discrepency for a couple drivers and such.. or is there more to the eye than I see?] I don't have the time to write software right now ... I'm much too busy as it is. That rules out a couple of the other options. It appears my best options are these: Switch over to the GVP SCSI controller system and get the WT/150. This would end up costing some Big Bucks (~$1100) since I can't reuse the hard disk I already have (An ST-506 Miniscribe). I'd end up with a much nicer Amiga for my effort, at least. The bridge card with some PeeCee based backup system. The advantage here is price .. I might be able to get away at <$500 by this route. But then I'd have this Really Slow tape drive .. etc .. etc .. bitch .. moan. -- <- David Herron, an MMDF weenie, <david@twg.com> <- Formerly: David Herron -- NonResident E-Mail Hack <david@ms.uky.edu> <- <- Sign me up for one "I survived Jaka's Story" T-shirt!
visinfo@ethz.UUCP (VISINFO c/o Sascha Schnapka) (07/16/90)
In article <1776@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca> lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes: >In <7588@gollum.twg.com>, david@twg.com (David S. Herron) writes: >>In _Amazing_Amiga_'s latest product guide a VCR based backup device >>is listed (price: $199). There's a note saying they weren't able >>to contact the company, and sho'nuff you call 'em up and ya get a >>no-such-phone-number message. They're in Vancouver, BC .. so are >>they related to any of the Vancouver people on the net? There is also a VCR Backup product made in Germany by the company SuperFormance. It is availble now for about DM 150.--. You get a small interface which connects into the Video and Serial Port with two connectors for the VCR. The Software is not very intelligent yet, you can only backup and restore the whole partition. The problem is that I couldn't get it to work with my configuration. I used a GVP 68030 card, A HardFrame with a WREN VI drive on an Rev 6.2 Amiga 2000 when I tried it out. My VCR is a JVC HR-755E. I know other poeple who could get the VCR Backup to work. They both used relatively cheap VCRs. I think now that a VCR Backup is not very reliable and if I can't get it to work on my A3000 (I doubt it) I have to look for an alternative way. /* -------------------------- SG (Simeon Graphics) ---------------------- */ /* Peter Simeon, UUCP: | // // */ /* visinfo@bernina.ethz.ch | // Long live the AMIGA! // */ /* BIX: hardwiz | \X/ \X/ */ /* ---------------------------------------------------------------------- */
harald@boink.UUCP (Harald Milne) (07/19/90)
In article <1776@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca>, lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes: > The only thing holding me back right now is the potential support nightmare > as folks try it on all manner of controllers/drives. Quite understandable! > It does currently work on 2090, 2090A, A3000, 2091.... I finally junked my 2090 in favor of the 2091, and lo, my Tandberg 150meg (It seems only capable of running in a select/deselect environment) began to function better. The 2091 driver however introduced a new problem, which trashed my SCSI command block. Someone from CBM posted a partial scsidisk.h in comp.periphs.scsi. CBM added to the end of the SCSIcmd structure for auto sense handling, which caused my data to get overwritten. This scsidisk.h is newer than what appears in the 1.3 RKMs and what ships with the latest Amiga C compilers, so beware. Also, a new flag was added to the SCSIcmd.Flags field. Can anybody shed any light on these flags, their use, etc.? There's no info anywhere in the RKMs. Does anyone have the new scsidisk.h? That is, could it be posted? Diffs maybe? > If you can manage to get hold of a SCSI tape drive, let me know, and I'll ship > you off a copy of my programs to try out. Any chance I can take you up on this offer Larry? I'll give it a spin, fix any problems, and send the fixes if any back to you if you would like that. I'm basically stuck now, for some reason the 2091 hangs with the "activity" LED on. This is a real bitch to debug. I was lucky to stumble on the SCSIcmd being larger now than before, which gave me the weirdest SCSI status from the tape drive (invalid command, due to my internal command block being overwritten). > The raytracer of justice recurses slowly, but it renders exceedingly fine. > +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ > | // Larry Phillips | > | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | > | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | > +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ -- Harald Milne RISCy business uunet!ccicpg!boink!harald
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (07/20/90)
In <664@boink.UUCP>, harald@boink.UUCP (Harald Milne) writes: >In article <1776@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca>, lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes: > > The 2091 driver however introduced a new problem, which trashed my >SCSI command block. Someone from CBM posted a partial scsidisk.h in >comp.periphs.scsi. CBM added to the end of the SCSIcmd structure for auto sense >handling, which caused my data to get overwritten. This scsidisk.h is newer >than what appears in the 1.3 RKMs and what ships with the latest Amiga C >compilers, so beware. Also, a new flag was added to the SCSIcmd.Flags field. Yup. I noticed that recently, and using the new one changed things for the better. >> If you can manage to get hold of a SCSI tape drive, let me know, and I'll ship >> you off a copy of my programs to try out. > > Any chance I can take you up on this offer Larry? Certainly. I have a few people on the list, and will be sending off the binaries to them after fixing a coule more buglets that were pointed out to me by a VERY efficient beta tester. > I'll give it a spin, fix any problems, and send the fixes if any back to >you if you would like that. > I'm basically stuck now, for some reason the 2091 hangs with the "activity" >LED on. I am getting some strange things too. My best beta tester has determined that the data read seems to come up a little short sometimes. In one case, 3 bytes seemed to be dropped, which threw out the positioning of the block buffers and caused the program to not recognize a file header. Additionally, With heavy disk activity, it seems I can hang the driver, as you have. > This is a real bitch to debug. Isn't it though? -larry -- The raytracer of justice recurses slowly, but it renders exceedingly fine. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) (07/21/90)
In article <664@boink.UUCP> harald@boink.UUCP (Harald Milne) writes: > I finally junked my 2090 in favor of the 2091, and lo, my Tandberg 150meg >(It seems only capable of running in a select/deselect environment) began to >function better. > The 2091 driver however introduced a new problem, which trashed my >SCSI command block. Someone from CBM posted a partial scsidisk.h in >comp.periphs.scsi. CBM added to the end of the SCSIcmd structure for auto sense >handling, which caused my data to get overwritten. This scsidisk.h is newer >than what appears in the 1.3 RKMs and what ships with the latest Amiga C >compilers, so beware. Also, a new flag was added to the SCSIcmd.Flags field. I didn't think we published the "old" version, but maybe the deadline was before the new version was released by the SCSI working group. > Can anybody shed any light on these flags, their use, etc.? There's no info >anywhere in the RKMs. Autosense (SCSIF_AUTOSENSE) means that the drive will do a request sense if an error is indicated for you, and put the results in the buffer provided. This is needed to use SCSIDirect in a multitasking environment. > Does anyone have the new scsidisk.h? You can get it (and all the new include files) from CATS. > I'm basically stuck now, for some reason the 2091 hangs with the "activity" >LED on. This is a real bitch to debug. I was lucky to stumble on the SCSIcmd >being larger now than before, which gave me the weirdest SCSI status from >the tape drive (invalid command, due to my internal command block being >overwritten). Try setting your drives to "no reselection". I think reselection will still be used on the tape drive, but this might help (solid scsi activity light usually means a scsi-bus lockup, where the driver and the chip/bus disagree on what should be happening). -- Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering. {uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com BIX: rjesup Common phrase heard at Amiga Devcon '89: "It's in there!"
dlarson@blake.acs.washington.edu (Dale Larson) (07/22/90)
Please tell me I'm wrong, but I understand this conversation to be saying
that there is _still_ no way to just buy a scsi tape drive and stick it
in your machine without having a xetec or gvp controller, and then you
have to buy theirs.
I find this _very_ disappointing becasue I was under the impression that
when my A3000 gets here (ordered last week) I could just get a scsi tape
drive and stick it in (or stick it in a shoebox) and _at least_ do
reliable image backups until there is a way to do reliable file by file
backups.
If you can be nice enough to tell me that I'm wrong and I can just buy
a tape drive, please do me the additional favor of recomending a drive
and vendor to order the drive from.
--
There are two ways to improve on human factors in computing:
to make the programmers less stupid and/or to make the users less stupid.
Both are necessary, but neither is likely.
-Dale Larson, Digital Teddy Bear (dlarson@blake.acs.washington.edu)jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) (07/24/90)
In article <5362@milton.u.washington.edu> dlarson@blake.acs.washington.edu (Dale Larson) writes: > >Please tell me I'm wrong, but I understand this conversation to be saying >that there is _still_ no way to just buy a scsi tape drive and stick it >in your machine without having a xetec or gvp controller, and then you >have to buy theirs. > >I find this _very_ disappointing becasue I was under the impression that >when my A3000 gets here (ordered last week) I could just get a scsi tape >drive and stick it in (or stick it in a shoebox) and _at least_ do >reliable image backups until there is a way to do reliable file by file >backups. > >If you can be nice enough to tell me that I'm wrong and I can just buy >a tape drive, please do me the additional favor of recomending a drive >and vendor to order the drive from. You should be able to do reliable backups to a scsi tape drive using bru. Bru does do file-by-file backups, not just image backups. Sorry, I can't recommend specific drives to you, given my position (plus I've only used one :-). -- Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering. {uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com BIX: rjesup Common phrase heard at Amiga Devcon '89: "It's in there!"
stevem@sauron.Columbia.NCR.COM (Steve McClure) (07/24/90)
In article <13375@cbmvax.commodore.com> jesup@cbmvax (Randell Jesup) writes: +In article <5362@milton.u.washington.edu> dlarson@blake.acs.washington.edu (Dale Larson) writes: +> +>Please tell me I'm wrong, but I understand this conversation to be saying +>that there is _still_ no way to just buy a scsi tape drive and stick it +>in your machine without having a xetec or gvp controller, and then you +>have to buy theirs. +> +>I find this _very_ disappointing becasue I was under the impression that +>when my A3000 gets here (ordered last week) I could just get a scsi tape +>drive and stick it in (or stick it in a shoebox) and _at least_ do +>reliable image backups until there is a way to do reliable file by file +>backups. +> +>If you can be nice enough to tell me that I'm wrong and I can just buy +>a tape drive, please do me the additional favor of recomending a drive +>and vendor to order the drive from. + + You should be able to do reliable backups to a scsi tape drive using +bru. Bru does do file-by-file backups, not just image backups. + + Sorry, I can't recommend specific drives to you, given my position +(plus I've only used one :-). + Any controller that support SCSIdirect should be able to support a SCSI tape drive. I fully expect to use my Archive 2160S and my 2091 with my software and Bru once I get 2.0. I use my own software right as do many, many others on this net. People are using Wangtek, Archive, Exabyte, ... drives all over the place. I don't think you will get any guarantees from any one however until 2.0 is official. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve email: Steve.McClure@Columbia.NCR.COM 803-791-7054 The above are my opinions, which NCR doesn't really care about anyway! CAUSER's Amiga BBS! | 803-796-3127 | 8pm-8am 8n1 | 300/1200/2400
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) (07/26/90)
stevem@sauron.Columbia.NCR.COM (Steve McClure) writes: |I use my own software right as do many, many others |on this net. People are using Wangtek, Archive, Exabyte, ... drives all over |the place. I don't think you will get any guarantees from any one however |until 2.0 is official. If anyone out there has gotten an Exabyte 8mm tape drive working on a 2000 with the 2091, please email me. Thanks. -- John Sparks | | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 2400bps. sparks@corpane.UUCP | | PH: (502) 968-DISK A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. - Ogden Nash
phorgan@cup.portal.com (Patrick John Horgan) (07/27/90)
With bru and a SCSI tape drive, does a eot get detected and the automatic tape changer (me), get notified to change the tape? Patrick Horgan phorgan@cup.portal.com
Frank.Malczewski@f625.n159.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Frank Malczewski) (08/25/90)
AREA:UUCP_AMIGA
Hi Larry,
I was reading the mail regarding tape backups. I have an SCSI unit
from a company called ADIC. I would like to try your program, no
strings attached if you are willing. I would send you a disk plus
postage if you'd like. Leave a message here if acceptable, or you can
call me at 517-636-4120 days, 517-631-4038 evening until 11:30 and on
weekends, EDST. Thank you.
Frank
--
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