lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (10/02/90)
In <rea.2176@AntHill.UUCP>, rea@AntHill.UUCP (Robert E. Anderson) writes: >-- >I followed the articles a couple of months back on SCSI tape >drives for the Amiga. From this I gathered that somebody had >put together a driver that supported the Amiga version of tar. > ... The person you are thinking of is Markus Wandel. He does not seem to be currently active on the net, but I will attempt to get in touch with him today via phone. He has written a handler that allows you to read/write on SCSI tape, and it works fine with tar (the one by Jonathan Hue, based on John Gilmore's version, and it must have the ). Markus and I have exchanged various notes and programs, and in the process, he has sent me his handler. If he says it's OK when I talk to him, I would be more than willing to send it out to any who request it, and/or make it available on the binaries or sources groups. I have also written a backup program that I use for my own purposes. It is not compatible with any other backup program, but it works, and it's fast. I was going to release it, but it looks like I may be making a deal with someone, and until that's settled, I cannot release it. >This Saturday I will be going to a swap/sale fest that has a lot >of non-state-of-the-art hardware. Since I have a Sun 3/60 on my >desk at work I would like to pick up a 1/4" tape compatible with >the one in my shoebox at work. Most SCSI drives will work, as will any drive that interfaces via an Emulex MT02 SCSI<->QIC-36 controller. Thsi also presumes that your host adapter can handle SCSIDirect. If you have a standard 3/60 shoebox, it will have either an Archive Scorpion or a Wangtech drive (Archive has a manually operated sliding catch to hold the tape in, while the Wangtek has an automatic 'push to insert, push to release' mechanism). If you are using an older shoebox (originally for the Sun 2), your tape drive will have a drive that holds the tape with the long edge parallel to the front of the unit. Some of the older Sun 2 tape drives were low capacity, and some were 60 meg drives (with a 600 ft. tape). All the Sun 3 shoebox drives are 60 meg capacity, unless modified by installing a different drive. In all these cases, the SCSI capability is provided by a controller (adapter) that converts SCSI<->QIC-36 interfaces. Some P-Boxes (sort of a tall, narrow thing, with the tape drive at the top front), have 60 meg drives, while some have 150 meg drives. To tell which is which, look into the front of the drive. If you see a stamped '150' in there, it's a 150 meg drive. All LunchBoxes (a small, almost square box about 2" high) with tape, have a 150 meg drive in them. Of course, if the shoebox is not from Sun, but from a third party, all bets are off as to what you have at work. >Looking for: > > 1) The drivers for any SCSI tape drive (ftp sites, as IP #'s) > BBS #'s here would be fine, preferably ones I could call > and download the needed software w/o waiting for registration. I am hoping that Markus will allow release of his handler... I'll keep you posted on progress. > 2) Do I need a 1/4" 9 track 150 Meg tape drive to be compatible > with the one in my Sun? Or will others be capable of > bi-directional transfer via a few options? See above for determination of the drive type. A 150 meg drive (the Archive viper), will read QIC-24 or QIC-11 (60 meg) tapes, but will not write them. The 60 meg drives will not read 150 meg tapes. > 3) Information on any known problems with leaving a tape in > a 1/4" drive in my HD bay of a B2000 and adding to it each > day. Do the heads sit on the tape and kill data? A couple of things.. first depends on whether or not you get a half-height drive with an embedded SCSI controller (adapter). If so, you can physically install it in the 5 1/4" bay. If you get a full height, you won't be able to. If you get a half-height with a separate controller (adapter, not to be confused with your host adapter), you will need to somehow mount the controller inside the 2000. It won't be easy, if it's even possible. I have mine in an external case, along with a couple of hard drives. The tape can sit there all day, and the data will be fine. There are a couple of problems with doing it though, in that you then have to decide whether to close the file(s) after each write, or take your chances on the SCSI bus being reset (reboot or SCSI bus problem), and having to deal with problems reading the last file. The file is closed automatically by tar (it writes a tape mark after the file), but then in the case of a reboot, you will have to position the tape to the end of recorded media again before allowing writes. Being aware of these considerations, you would have no trouble figuring out the best way to handle it. Markus' handler allows writing from current position, beginning of tape, or end of recorded media, within the limitations of the drive, which is to say that 'current position' must also be end of recorded media for a write (you got there by writing), and allows reading from BOT or EOM. > 4) What brands of 1/4" Half height drives will work the way > I wish to use it. > > 5) Aside from links are there other problems with using tar > between unix and the Amiga. And can/will this be fixable > when I am able to run under 2.0? I have had no problems with using tar to transport data in both directions, using 60 meg drives. Your mention of links makes me wonder though. I don't know if there is a problem with Unix links. There should not be a problem with Amigados links (in 2.0), except that since they are hard links, some programs would get stored (and restored) twice, perhaps causing a space problem. Hope this helps. -larry -- It is not possible to both understand and appreciate Intel CPUs. -D.Wolfskill +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+