buck@drax.gsfc.nasa.gov (Loren (Buck) Buchanan) (10/27/90)
Hi, Here is my followup to a few postings I made some time ago about 9-track tape drives. Because of various restrictions, government procurement rules, etc. we now have two Pertec FS-2001-2 (SCSI interface and 1Meg cache). After spending a couple weeks trying to get either dd or my own custom software to read tapes we get from our customer, I started over from scratch using the low level SCSI device driver (cd /usr/people/4Dgifts/examples/devices; more README). I now am able to read the tapes, but the code is not pretty, nor is it transportable. What I don't understand now, after going through this exercise, is why dd and my earlier custom software does not work with the Pertec, as I have followed the SCSI standard (X3.131-1986), and there was no funny vendor specific stuff that had to be done to get it to work. (To optimize through put, well that is a different story). What I would hope Silicon Graphics (and other vendors as well) is to provide generic drivers for unsupported devices (set vendor specific bits to zero) and hope for the best. In addition to this, I would like to see is configurable drivers (i.e., via /usr/sysgen/master.d/scsi) to provide access to the bits that would allow for optimization. Since we got our tape drive, it seems as though Cipher has come out with a new model, the 995. It is physically small enough to fit in the space allotted (10" or less of rack face). I would assume that it is upward compatible with the 990 which does work with IRISes. Another project in the building just bought one. It was a bit more expensive than the Pertec, but they had heard about my problems, and decided not to buy Pertec. Guess what does not work with the Sun or HP workstations? Yep, the Cipher is not yet working for that other project (mayby I can work a trade ;-). I have gotten from the Pertec vendor a device driver for the SPARCstation. Oh well, I guess thats life in system integrators lane (SGI is providing me job security ;-) ;-) ;-). B Cing U Buck Loren Buchanan | buck@drax.gsfc.nasa.gov | #include <std_disclaimer.h> CSC, 1100 West St. | ...!ames!dftsrv!drax!buck | typedef int by Laurel, MD 20707 | (301) 497-2531 | void where_prohibited(by law){} Phone tag, America's fastest growing business sport.