mikeh@atexrd.UUCP (Mike Harris) (03/11/88)
Forgive me if this question has already been posed to the group, but can anyone tell me how to extract from a tape, written by a MASSCOMP, from a SUN?? I had have no trouble whatsoever reading and writing tapes between Masscomp and Intel machines, but am unable to read the tape on a SUN. Any Ideas? -- =============================================================================== | Mike Harris, Atex Inc., A Kodak Company 1-617-276-7392 | | {ll-xn,genrad,munsell,kodak}!atexrd!mikeh | ===============================================================================
g-rh@cca.CCA.COM (Richard Harter) (03/11/88)
In article <327@earth.atexrd.UUCP> mikeh@atexrd.UUCP (Mike Harris) writes: >Forgive me if this question has already been posed to the group, but can >anyone tell me how to extract from a tape, written by a MASSCOMP, from a >SUN?? I had have no trouble whatsoever reading and writing tapes between >Masscomp and Intel machines, but am unable to read the tape on a SUN. >Any Ideas? Me thinks you are talking about 1/4 inch cartridge tapes rather than 1/2 inch 9 track tapes. 1/2 inch 9 track TAR tapes all use the same format (excepting for delightful little bits like word order and BSD/Sys V block size differences). They go all over the place. Cartridges are a different matter -- there are several different formats in use in the industry and SUN follows their own drummer. Someone have conversion software -- our experience is that life is a lot simpler if you stick to 9-track tape for inter machine transport. -- In the fields of Hell where the grass grows high Are the graves of dreams allowed to die. Richard Harter, SMDS Inc.
dce@mips.COM (David Elliott) (03/11/88)
In article <25434@cca.CCA.COM> g-rh@CCA.CCA.COM.UUCP (Richard Harter) writes: >size differences). They go all over the place. Cartridges are a different >matter -- there are several different formats in use in the industry and >SUN follows their own drummer. Someone have conversion software -- our This is sad, and it's certainly not Sun's fault. The various QIC formats all have their place. Some pack data better when you stream. Some pack data better when you don't. Some allow unblocked reads and writes. Most are incompatible. The first Mips systems used QIC-11 with special headers to allow for any size reads and writes. This is great if you don't need to transfer data to other types of systems (including Suns). We now support standard QIC-11 and QIC-24, and QIC-11 with headers, but the conversion was not easy. We even had to supply various flavors of software tapes for a while. Let this be a warning to all systems manufacturers. New controllers (for any kind of hardware) may have fabulous features, but you had better make sure that you aren't stuck when you use them. That "special double density packing mode" on your new disk controller that allows you to get more space for the price may just turn out to be a bust. Then, you get to tell your customers that they have to reformat all of their disks, and "oh, by the way, they will only be half the old size"... -- David Elliott dce@mips.com or {ames,prls,pyramid,decwrl}!mips!dce
ron@topaz.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) (03/15/88)
The tar's are compatible. I assume your problem is with the Quarter Inch Cartridges. Make sure you use /dev/rst8 on the SUN when you read or write tapes for other machine types. By the way, has anyone ever noticed that not a single UNIX tar program obeys the protocol in the TAR manual pages? The man page calls for zero filled fields, but every tar I've seen uses printf and makes space filled fields, fortuately the read procees on these programs doesn't care. -Ron
larry@jc3b21.UUCP (Lawrence F. Strickland) (03/15/88)
From article <25434@cca.CCA.COM>, by g-rh@cca.CCA.COM (Richard Harter): > In article <327@earth.atexrd.UUCP> mikeh@atexrd.UUCP (Mike Harris) writes: >>Forgive me if this question has already been posed to the group, but can >>anyone tell me how to extract from a tape, written by a MASSCOMP, from a >>SUN?? I had have no trouble whatsoever reading and writing tapes between >>Masscomp and Intel machines, but am unable to read the tape on a SUN. >>Any Ideas? > > Me thinks you are talking about 1/4 inch cartridge tapes rather than 1/2 > inch 9 track tapes. 1/2 inch 9 track TAR tapes all use the same format > (excepting for delightful little bits like word order and BSD/Sys V block > size differences). They go all over the place. Cartridges are a different > matter -- there are several different formats in use in the industry and > SUN follows their own drummer. Someone have conversion software -- our > experience is that life is a lot simpler if you stick to 9-track tape for > inter machine transport. > -- It is correct that there are numerous varieties of formats used by 1/4" cartridge tapes. In fact, AT&T cartridge tapes cannot be read/written by anyone else in the known universe (this is the variety made by ctc routines. Rumor has it there is another variety, but I can't find it). However, I don't believe this is the problem here. Or at least not the major problem. The original poster mentions that Intel machines could read/write the tape. If these are XENIX machines with a standard drive, then the problem could be the driver that is being used. For tar tapes, it is common to use: $ tar xvf /dev/rst0 or the equivalent for creating the tape. There is also a /dev/nrst0 which is the non-rewinding version of the SCSI-tape driver. It can be used for multiple-file tapes (SUN does this on their boot tapes, though I always have problems with it). If you look in the /dev directory, you will also find a /dev/rst8 and a /dev/nrst8. By using: $ tar xvf /dev/rst8 I have been able to read tapes created on a number of different machines, mostly XENIX, and write tapes that could be read on a XENIX machine. I'm not sure what the difference between the two drivers is, though. Someone once described it as a different 'density' (like mag tapes), but I doubt it. If someone could shed more light on this, I'd love to know... -larry -- +--------------------------------------+-- St. Petersburg Junior College --+ | Lawrence F. Strickland | P.O. Box 13489 | | ...gatech!codas!usfvax2!jc3b21!larry | St. Petersburg, FL 33733 | +-(or) ...gatech!usfvax2!jc3b21!larry -+-- Phone: +1 813 341 4705 ---------+
davidsen@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP (William E. Davidsen Jr) (03/16/88)
Since someone in this group told me about /dev/rst8 I have been able to
move from Xenix to Sun using cpio with -c. I have not loaded tar tapes,
but I can read the directory (t option).
--
bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa)
{uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -meehrhart@aai8..istc.sri.com (Tim Ehrhart) (03/17/88)
In article <342@jc3b21.UUCP> larry@jc3b21.UUCP (Lawrence F. Strickland) writes: >For tar tapes, it is common to use: > > $ tar xvf /dev/rst0 > >If you look in the /dev directory, you will also find a /dev/rst8 and a >/dev/nrst8. By using: > > $ tar xvf /dev/rst8 > >If someone could shed more light on this, I'd love to know... Lawrence, I'd love to take credit for some terrific insight, but alas I can only quote from the SunOS st(4) man page: /****************************************************************************/ DESCRIPTION The Sysgen tape controller is a SCSI bus interface to an Archive streaming tape drive. It provides a standard tape interface to the device, see mtio(4), with some deficiencies listed under BUGS below. To utilize the QIC 24 format, access the logical device that is eight more than the default physical (QIC 11) device (that is, rst0 = QIC 11, rst8 = QIC 24). Sun Release 3.4 Last change: 21 May 1986 1 ST(4S) SPECIAL FILES ST(4S) FILES /dev/rst[0-3] QIC 11 Format /dev/rst[8-11] QIC 24 Format /dev/nrst[0-3] non-rewinding QIC 11 Format /dev/nrst[8-11] non-rewinding QIC 24 Format /****************************************************************************/ The REAL difference is that "st0" (QIC-11) uses 4 tracks, and "st8" (QIC-24) uses 9 tracks. So the actual storage capacity is more than doubled. Here's how I calculate tape capacity for these 1/4" puppies: (pseudo code) density = 1000 BytesPerInch (not changeable, as far as I know) ntracks = ("dev" == "st8" ? 9 : 4) tapelen = 300 ft., 450 ft., or 600 ft. (most popular sizes) fudge_factor = .9 (purely empirical) capacity = (((density * (tapelen * 12)) * ntracks) * fudge_factor) Tim Ehrhart Systems Programmer SRI International Menlo Park, CA
parker@epiwrl.EPI.COM (Alan Parker) (03/17/88)
In the particular case of Masscomp<->Sun cartridge tapes: we have found that we can read a tar cartridge tape on the Sun (3) made on the Masscomp if the blocking factor is 20 (I think). This seems to be pretty reliable. We have found that sometimes we can read tapes on the Masscomp, made on the Sun; but it often doesn't work. I don't understand why it is unreliable in this direction.
fyl@ssc.UUCP (Phil Hughes) (03/18/88)
I don't know if this is much help but here is the one thing I know about Sun cartridge tape: the bits are complemented and each word is written in the reverse bit ordr from those tapes written on a Plexus. Seems like a strange thing to know but I wrote a tape on a Plexus for someone with a Sun and this was his conclusion. -- Phil uunet!pilchuck!ssc!fyl
haral@unisol.UUCP (Haral Tsitsivas) (03/25/88)
In article <2103@epiwrl.EPI.COM> parker@epiwrl.EPI.COM (Alan Parker) writes: >In the particular case of Masscomp<->Sun cartridge tapes: we have >found that we can read a tar cartridge tape on the Sun (3) made on the >Masscomp if the blocking factor is 20 (I think). This seems to be >pretty reliable. We have found that sometimes we can read tapes on the >Masscomp, made on the Sun; but it often doesn't work. I don't >understand why it is unreliable in this direction. The confusion seems to come from the fact that the tar default device on Sun systems is /dev/rst0 (low density, can fit 40 MB/cartridge) instead of /dev/rst8 (higher density, can fit 60 MB/cartridge). /dev/rst8 is the format that most other vendors (and cartridge recording formats) are compatible with... Try using /dev/rst8 on your Sun the next time... --Haral Tsitsivas UniSolutions Associates (213) 641-6739 ...!uunet!scgvaxd!ashtate!unisol!haral