bdm@ciprico.mn.org (Bill D. Moren) (09/18/87)
TAPEMASTER 3000 VMEbus PERTEC COMPATIBLE 1/2" TAPE CONTROLLER
Ciprico Inc.'s Tapemaster 3000 1/2-inch tape controller is
capable of streaming GCR density tapes at high tape speeds.
Easy integration into UNIX-based machines is accomplished with
Ciprico developed and supported device drivers.
* Supports Streaming at * Pass Through Tape Commands
GCR Densities and Speeds
* Any Size Record Can Be Read
* Tape data rates of or Written
2 Mbytes/second
* Unknown Size Records Can Be
* Scatter/Gather and Ring Read
Buffer Commands
Keeping drives streaming at GCR densities and speeds, the
board provides VMEbus users with the capability to get the most
utility from their high performance tape drives. The combination
of a dual FIFO architecture and an advanced command set are used
to minimize the latencies that hinder streaming operations. A 4-
Kbyte data FIFO and 32-byte Short Burst FIFO decouple the tape
and system bus interfaces, allowing concurrent operations on
both. Ring buffer operations, in addition to other advanced
command techniques, minimize the software latencies which reduce
throughput and impede streaming.
Flexibility, essential to solving unique problems, is a word
that describes what this controller brings to a broad range of
system applications. Hardware support for byte order swapping,
simplifying the interchange of tapes between different systems,
is a standard feature of the Tapemaster 3000 controller. In
addition, the ability to read unknown length records is useful
when dealing with foreign tapes.
Scatter/Gather DMA transfers of tape data, a technique which
transfers records between discontiguous sections of system
memory, simplifies integrating half-inch tape into high
performance systems. System memory allocation techniques may
require data to reside in separate fragments. The controller's
Scatter/Gather capability eliminates the software that
consolidates these fragments into a single buffer, further
reducing the software latencies that are detrimental to streaming
operations. Scatter/Gather also provides the facility to read or
write records of unlimited length, useful in many data collection
applications.
Easy access to the tape drive interface, via pass through
commands and programmable drive parameters, reduces the effort
required to implement drive-specific features. The Pertec
interface, a de facto standard, has been molded by drive
manufacturers to take advantage of their value-added features.
Pass through commands provide users with a means to directly
access the interface and use drive specific commands, while
programmable drive parameters are used to configure the
controller for characteristics which vary from drive to drive.
With a tape data transfer rate capability of 2
Mbytes/second, integrating tomorrow's tape drives will be as easy
as today's. Even at the highest speeds and densities currently
available, the Tapemaster 3000 tape interface uses only a small
portion of its usable bandwidth. Caching tape drives with
increased burst rates still don't approach the limits of the
board. But as peripheral performance requirements increase over
the life of a system, today's extra capacity will be needed
tomorrow.
The Tapemaster 3000 controller is available today with a
list price of $1873. For more information on the Tapemaster 3000
controller, or any of Ciprico's VMEbus, Multibus I, or Multibus
II compatible mass storage controllers, contact Bill Moren at
Ciprico:
Ciprico Inc.
2955 Xenium Lane
Plymouth, MN 55441
(612) 559-2034
or at:
bdm@ciprico.mn.org