Interactive and tape drives

[John G. De Armond]

In article <1989Oct27.184405.3493 at rand.org> edhall at rand.org (Ed Hall) writes:

^This is true for all UNIX systems I know of, including Interactive's:
^the buffered (block) version of a device will not return a reliable
^end-of-media.  You must use the raw (character) device.  It's easy
^to see why--the system can have several buffers already queued when
^the EOM hits.  Even though the user successfully ``wrote'' those
^buffers, they'll never make it onto the tape.
^

100% true.  The problem is that the interactive wantek driver does not
supply a raw interface.  I'm convinced I  have to count bytes to
reliably handle multi-tape volumes.

John


-- 
John De Armond, WD4OQC                     | Manual? ... What manual ?!? 
Radiation Systems, Inc.     Atlanta, GA    | This is Unix, My son, You 
emory!stiatl!rsiatl!jgd   **I am the NRA** | just GOTTA Know!!!