caa@com50.c2s.mn.org (Charles Anderson) (05/14/91)
I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and he made a comment about having a couple of floppy tape drives lying around since no one was using them, and I was wondering if anyone knew any specifics on plugging one of these suckers into my machine....I don't really care if I have to replace the floppy drive (It sucks anyways.) Is it possible??? Has it been done? -Charlie -- /-Charles-Anderson-\ | caa@c2s.mn.org || caa@midgard.mn.org \------------------/ | Com Squared Systems, voice (612) 452-9522 The rose goes in front | 1285 Corporate Center Drive fax (612) 452-3607 big guy -Crash Davis | Suite 170 | Eagan, MN 55121 (I speak for myself)
mvadh@cbnews.cb.att.com (andrew.d.hay) (05/15/91)
In article <1991May13.231146.4710@com50.c2s.mn.org> caa@com50.c2s.mn.org (Charles Anderson) writes:
"
"I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and he made a comment about
"having a couple of floppy tape drives lying around since no one was using
"them, and I was wondering if anyone knew any specifics on plugging one of
"these suckers into my machine....I don't really care if I have to replace
"the floppy drive (It sucks anyways.) Is it possible??? Has it been done?
there's no software for it *AT*THE*PRESENT*.
however, i've got a cms jumbo (qic-40) drive, an hd2 kit, and i'm
going to start work on a driver Real Soon Now... (;^>)
--
Andrew Hay +------------------------------------------------------+
Ragged Individualist | JAAAAAAANE! |
AT&T-BL Ward Hill MA | HOW DO YOU STOP THIS CRAZY THING? |
a.d.hay@att.com +------------------------------------------------------+dnichols@ceilidh.beartrack.com (DoN Nichols) (05/16/91)
In article <1991May13.231146.4710@com50.c2s.mn.org> caa@com50.c2s.mn.org (Charles Anderson) writes: > >I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and he made a comment about >having a couple of floppy tape drives lying around since no one was using >them, and I was wondering if anyone knew any specifics on plugging one of >these suckers into my machine....I don't really care if I have to replace >the floppy drive (It sucks anyways.) Is it possible??? Has it been done? Yes, it is possible. It has been done (by Convergent Technoligies), but it requires a extra card containing a second floppy disk controller. Find someone in your area who has the Technical Reference Manual and look at the section on the floppy tape drive. The schematics of the controller are shown. (I don't remember whether it involves any undocumented PAL chips.) The drive used is exactly the same as that used for the 3b2, and is a full-height drive, so you can't just swap out your floppy drive, even assuming that you could make the driver use the floppy-disk's interface, and that there is nothing extra needed. If I remember, the drive-select lines are used to select which track the drive will use, so there is a bit of interface difference between the tape drive and the floppy. I don't think the hardware mods are practical even if you had a modified kernel with the necessary driver. You need a loadable device driver with the interface. Given the minuses of the floppy tape drive, if you can't find one with controller and software, you would be better off investigating another angle. The floppy-tapes MUST be formatted FROM A DIAGNOSTIC DISK, hold only 23MB on a DC-600A cartridge (which should hold 60MB otherwise), and are painfully slow. I find it quicker to tar to remsh (with the ethernet) to another system with a SCSI drive, and pipe that through dd into the drive. Same tape cartridge, 60MB, faster, and NO PRE-FORMATTING! Also, you need to keep the floppy drive for rebuilding the system after a crash :-) We can keep hoping that someone will complete the scsi interface, so we can hang such a drive directly on our own system. (I'm lucky having a mix of systems connected by ethernet.) Good Luck DoN. -- Donald Nichols (DoN.) | Voice (Days): (703) 664-1585 D&D Data | Voice (Eves): (703) 938-4564 Disclaimer: from here - None | Email: <dnichols@ceilidh.beartrack.com> --- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---