wrp@biochsn.acc.virginia.edu (William R. Pearson) (02/21/88)
I am planning on getting a 60 Mbyte streaming cartridge tape drive for my IBM/PC-AT running Xenix. I would like to be able to have this drive read and write cartridges to/from a Sun3/50. The easiest tape drive for me to buy is an Everex, but I have gotten conflicting information from dealers as to it's compatibility with Xenix, not to mention with the Sun. (1) I can get the everex with a QIC36 or QIC02 controller. The QIC02 controller costs a little more. There is agreement that the QIC36 controller needs special driver software. Can I use the QIC02 controller with Xenix without any special drivers? (2) SCO (the makers of my Xenix), say that they support various drive/controller combinations (none of which I can find to buy). SCO says they write tapes in QIC24 format. Is this the same as that used on a SUN 3/50 tape drive? Can I exchange tapes. (3) There are some retailers that will sell me an Archive 60 Meg drive (although they do not seem to know anything about it). Is this drive more compatible with the Sun? Thank you for any help. There must be many Everex tape drive owners out there, I hope that a few are running Xenix (and reading news). Bill Pearson wrp@virginia.EDU
chip@killer.UUCP (Chip Rosenthal) (02/23/88)
> wrp@biochsn.acc.Virginia.EDU (William R. Pearson) writes: > (1) I can get the everex with a QIC36 or QIC02 controller. The >QIC02 controller costs a little more. There is agreement that the QIC36 >controller needs special driver software. If these external drivers are by Sytron Corp, beware. I'm using their drivers with a Tecmar QT-60e drive. They don't include any documentation other than for their brain-damaged, menu-driven backup program. I called up Sytron to get the ioctl codes to rewind and retension tapes. They keep telling me that this information is "proprietary", even though the folks who say so obviously have no idea what an ioctl() is. I haven't given up. I told them I'm willing to sign a non-disclosure, and the tech support people are now passing the buck to their Director of Product Development. Maybe the dictionary needs another entry for proprietary: we don't know and we don't want to bother finding out. -- Chip Rosenthal chip@vector.UUCP | But if you want to sing the Dallas Semiconductor (214) 450-0400 | blues, then boy you better {codas,ihnp4}!killer!vector!chip | learn how to lose.