Alex Whites solution to end of - (nf)

Fri Mar 16 22:06:20 AEST 1984

#R:sri-arpa:-1746100:fortune:11600073:000:1088
fortune!rpw3    Mar 16 02:15:00 1984

ANSI labels for tapes correspond to super-blocks for disks. They do NOT have
to change your idea of a "file", if you don't want that. You can make tapes
that look IDENTICAL to "naked" UNIX character-device tapes but still have
full ANSI labels. Some folks would like that; some wouldn't. But it's possible.
(Go read the spec.)

In the TOPS-10/TOPS-20 implementations (at least the early ones), there were
no changes to user programs required when a site went to labeled tapes.
(Of course, like any other feature, if you WANT to know about the labels you
have to change the program.)

Under UNIX, you could do the whole thing with "mount/umount"-style commands.
(Syntax shown as example only, NOT as proposal!)

Unlabeled or Implicit Labels		Explicitly Labeled
----------------------------		------------------
					mount -tape /dev/rmt0 -vol_id "mytape"
	tar xvf /dev/rmt0		tar xvf /dev/rmt0
					umount -tape /dev/rmt0

Rob Warnock

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