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