lamaster@pioneer.arpa (Hugh LaMaster) (07/28/87)
This is an information request regarding those ~60 MB cartridge tape drives
often found on workstations.
There seem to be several incompatible cartridge styles out there, and some
drives seem to have a poor reputation for either reliability or convenience.
For example, it would seem undesirable that a tape drive for use with a
workstation be damaged by either putting the wrong type of cartridge in or
putting a cartridge in upside down or backwards. I would be interested in
hearing good or bad experiences with either a particular manufacturer's drive
or a particular type/format.
Is there an (emerging) standard for these cartridges and for the tape format
(ANSI, IEEE, etc.)?
If you have specifics on a particular manufacturer, do you know what buses and
systems are supported (for Un*x)? (e.g. VMEbus for Sun, Apollo, Integrated
Solutions, Multibus for Masscomp, SGI, Q-Bus for DEC MicroVAX under Ultrix,
etc. etc.).
Please post, or send to me and I will summarize if there are several responses.
Hugh LaMaster, m/s 233-9, UUCP {seismo,topaz,lll-crg,ucbvax}!
NASA Ames Research Center ames!pioneer!lamaster
Moffett Field, CA 94035 ARPA lamaster@ames-pioneer.arpa
Phone: (415)694-6117 ARPA lamaster@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov
"IBM will have it soon"
(Disclaimer: "All opinions solely the author's responsibility")aad+@andrew.cmu.edu (Anthony A. Datri) (07/29/87)
I can speak mainly for sun3's here. They use a standard 600' cartridge. Putting the cartridge in wrong doesn't damage anything -- it just doesn't do anything. It's a SCSI drive, so the fact that it's VME is irrelevant unless you want to buy a drive from someone else. I believe that these cartridges are also used by many PC backup units as well as the MicroPDP11 TK25 drive.