terry@venus.sunquest.com (Terry R. Friedrichsen) (11/30/90)
A box landed in my office yesterday containing a brand-new DEC 4mm DAT TLZ04 tape drive, hereinafter referred to as RDAT (table-top model). I opened the box and scanned the booklet (no! really! I did that FIRST!) and found the statement that the RDAT worked with Ultrix v3.1D. But alas, there was also a 1-page addendum which said "we really meant Ultrix 4.1". Since I'm still at Ultrix 4.0, I was bummed, but figured that it might work anyway since it apparently was intended to work with 3.1D. So I forged ahead. The book claims this thing stores 1.2 GB on a tape, while others seem to claim 1.3 GB. I don't know the reason for the diff; maybe DEC is just being conservative (?). I pulled out the RDAT and noticed right away that the power switch is a push-in/pop-out type, very small, and white. Hard to tell visually which position it is in; I wish DEC would have stuck to the big, wide, gray 1/0 rocker power switch. There were 3 4mm cassettes in the box - two buried in the foam cushion, and one in a bag. The two in the cushion turn out to be a cleaning cassette (good for 25 cleanings, about 1 every two weeks or 25 hours of use, sez the booklet) and a blank to get you started (thanks, DEC!). The one in the bag is a patch for Ultrix 4.1 (not too confidence-inspiring, that), so I left it alone for the time being, with more cause to wonder whether Ultrix 4.0 would handle it. Speaking of lack of confidence, the box also includes two spare fuses for the thing, so I'm watching carefully for smoke ... Also in the box is a 2.3 meter power cable and a 1 meter SCSI extension cable (not the kind that plugs directly into the system unit). The RDAT comes configured as SCSI unit 5, which was fine by me, so I powered down and hooked it up. Everything came up fat, dumb, and happy, with Ultrix 4.0 recognizing the device as a tz5. MAKEDEV tz5 created the usual assortment of rmt1 suspects (I have a TK50 already), so I was still in the game. Popped in the included blank cassettes (anybody know what the difference is between a cassette (TLZ04) and a cartridge (TKZ-50)?) and waited. It takes about 30 seconds to get to load point. The cassette is COMPLETELY swallowed by the drive - it's just plain gone. You can insert the cassete incorrectly, but the drive will only swallow it in the correct orientation. Picked my favorite disk (the one with MY files on it :-) and fired up a plain, unadorned tar(1) command. RDAT took right off, slapping bits on the tape at a rate of about 200K bytes per second. About 45 minutes later, my 3/4 full RZ56 was backed up. Rewind was pretty fast (20 seconds? maybe 30?). Hit the eject button, waited 15 seconds for the tape to spit back out, and slid over the write-protect tab. First test complete; time to post a message to the world! Terry R. Friedrichsen TERRY@VENUS.SUNQUEST.COM (this should work these days) uunet!sunquest!terry (I know this works) TERRY@SDS.SDSC.EDU (alternate address; I live and work in Tucson) Quote: "Do, or do not. There is no 'try'." - Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back
brodie@fps.mcw.edu (12/07/90)
In article <10947@sunquest.UUCP>, terry@venus.sunquest.com (Terry R. Friedrichsen) writes: > > Picked my favorite disk (the one with MY files on it :-) and fired up a plain, > unadorned tar(1) command. RDAT took right off, slapping bits on the tape at > a rate of about 200K bytes per second. About 45 minutes later, my 3/4 full > RZ56 was backed up. Rewind was pretty fast (20 seconds? maybe 30?). > > Hit the eject button, waited 15 seconds for the tape to spit back out, and > slid over the write-protect tab. First test complete; time to post a message > to the world! yeah, but maybe ultrix 4.1 is only required to RESTORE the data.. :-) ------ Kent C. Brodie - Sr. Systems Manager internet: brodie@fps.mcw.edu Faculty Physicians & Surgeons uucpnet: uwm.edu!fps!brodie Medical College of Wisconsin voicenet: +1 414 778 4500 faxnet: +1 414 778 6694 "Operator! Quick-- give me the number for 911" -Homer Simpson