Trouble installing floppy tape drive

[Karl Denninger]

In article <274 at alzabo.UUCP> brian at alzabo.UUCP (Brian Hilchie) writes:
>I'm having trouble getting my new Colorado Memory Systems floppy
>tape drive model DJ-10 to work under Xenix.  It is a mini
>cartridge drive which uses the floppy controller so I followed
>the installation procedure outlined in the manual for mini tape
>drives.  But when I try to format a tape the floppy disk drive
>light comes on, the tape fast forwards and rewinds, moves back and
>forth a bit more, stops, and I get a message saying I can't open
>/dev/rctmini.
>
>The drive works well under DOS so my guess is I need a special driver.
>Is this correct?  If so, does anyone have a driver and can you mail
>me a copy or tell me where I can find one.   Thanks...
>
>P.S. I'm running SCO Xenix 2.3

You're SOL on that one.....

We tried this trick with the CMS drives a while back.  They didn't work with
the IRWIN driver that SCO supplies; that wasn't a big surprise (there's no
real standard for floppy-type controlled drives).

CMS wouldn't help us, wouldn't give us technical information on the drive so
we could write a driver, and in general was not helpful at all.  They
claimed that the interface was "proprietary" and refused to send any kind of
technical data sheet or ANYTHING.  They said they were working on a driver for 
Xenix, but wouldn't even give us an ESTIMATED ship date.

We returned the drive.

I suggest you do too....the Irwin 145's work great under Xenix; we've used
them for a couple of years now without problems.

--
Karl Denninger (karl at ddsw1.MCS.COM, ddsw1!karl)
Data: [+1 312 566-8912], Voice: [+1 312 566-8910]
Macro Computer Solutions, Inc.    	"Quality solutions at a fair price"