harp@terra.pkg.mcc.com (Christopher North-Keys) (02/01/90)
David Gootwassink was wondering about attaching Kennedy 9300's to Sun-4/260's. Sun told him to order a Xylogics 472, which doesn't sound real hot. Here's a hopefully-relevant accounting of our (likely slightly younger) Kennedy. We've a Kennedy 9660 1/2" tape drive connected to a Sun 3/150 SunOS 4.0.3 via Ciprico VMEbus Tapemaster 3000 controller (Kennedy's number was (perhaps is) (818)357-8831. Ciprico's is (612)559-2034.). The Ciprico controller is not directly supported by Sun (last time checked), but came with a decent set of kernel mods. CAVEAT: make root backups on a native tape drive, if possible---it's less than fun to discover the root backup is not accessible without the additional objects which just happen to be on the root backup... -----anecdote about Kennedys. We had an interesting, worsening problem with a failure in the auto-loader mechanism. Kennedy wanted fare, room, board, parts, and labor to fly someone out to fix it which would likely have run over $1000. Two of us thought this was ridiculous and narrowed the problem to tape slippage on the auto-loader takeup reel. They didn't seem to want to send a new reel. We observed that the surface had been smoothed by wear against tape over the years and considered sandblasting the reel to regain friction. No luck--- the shop was closed. Brainstorm ensued: I suggested trying something tacky. My partner in crime christened the approach something like `adhesive fricative resurfacing film' and ye olde Scotch tape was promptly applied. Works like a dream.