tapestreamer

[Tony Cooper]

In article <1991Jun2.222552.28785 at intacc.uucp>, mann at intacc.uucp (Jeff
Mann) writes:
|> I called Micronet to order one of their 150MB drives with A/UX driver.
[ ...]
|> near future.  They claim the software does not work properly, probably
|> due in part to bugs in the A/UX SCSI manager.  Supposedly, extensive
|> cpio or tar backups and restores are unstable, and dd is the only
|> reliable method.  The version of Tony's software that they have is
|> several months old, so maybe there have been some fixes since then.

This is news to me. The version that I gave them in July 1990 (version
1.00) works fine under A/UX. I think that they are confusing A/UX tar 
and cpio bugs with driver bugs. I know that A/UX 2.0 tar had some bugs.
In any case, the person who was looking after A/UX at MicroNet has left
and so the information you have is second (or third) hand. The information
straight from the horse's mouth is that the 1.01 driver is in MicroNet's
hands and it works fine for a number of drives and A/UX 1.1 upwards.

They have a new A/UX person now. His name is Don.

(I sent you a message Jeff but the mail bounced.)

|> Since Apple has discontinued the SC40 tape drive, there are NO tape
|> drives available that support A/UX (or rather, A/UX doesn't support tape
|> backup), except for the DAT models.  This really pisses me off.  I've

I don't think this is true. There are others out there. FWB support a number
of tape drives. And A/UX has a driver that supports more than the SC40 too.

|> got a 650MB drive and there's no way in hell I'm going to back it up

What do you know! 650 = half a DAT tape (or 1/4). DAT was made for your system.

|> onto floppies.  Also, there's a bunch of UNIX software I need that only
|> comes on QIC-format tape cartriges.  The fact that A/UX doesn't support
[...]
|> The fact that it doesn't support non-Apple tape drives under any
|> circumstance, and that Apple doesn't even make tape drives anymore, is
|> just plain stupid.

Wrong. A/UX does support non Apple tape drives under some circumstances. In
fact A/UX 2.0 supports Viper and Archive drives. The reason why is because
Apple use these drives in house (I think). I don't know which models.

I wouldn't say it was "plain stupid" but I would say they they have a missed
opportunity there. In fact, Apple have lots of missed opportunity on the
SCSI peripheral side of things. But it could be that their policy is to
leave SCSI peripherals to third parties. It could be that their policy is
to make Macs and Mac software rather than stuff anyone can make.

Tony Cooper
sramtrc at albert.dsir.govt.nz