tape drives

[Richard Goerwitz]

In article <131 at embassy.UUCP> lance at embassy.UUCP (Lance N. Antrim) writes:
>From article <5815 at ozdaltx.UUCP>, by root at ozdaltx.UUCP (root):
>> We're considering adding a tape drive to the system.  I'd be
>> interested in opinions, good or bad about drives available to run on
>> SCO XENIX, 286, Ver 2.2.3.  I have heard Mountain and Colorado
>> mentioned in the past - prices are certainly reasonable....

>I have installed a Mountain 4440 40 meg drive in my 80386 system 
>with Xenix 2.3.2 (AT version).  This setup did not work correctly with
>the Mountain supplied xenix driver (which had been developed for an
>earlier version of the Xenix system).  I have tried the SCO supplied SLS
>for the Mountain 40 meg tape (QIC-40) but I haven't got it working - not
>even as close as the old Mountain driver.
>
>I would appreciate any advice.  Mountain told my distributor that SCO
>handles the driver for the QIC-40 tapes now, and I believe that SCO
>feels that the SLS took care of the problem.  I have tried installing
>the SLS twice (even read the instructions both times :-), and gotten the
>same result (i.e. on the command "tape status" the cursor transports to
>a different dimension and is never heard from again).

I quote this whole posting because I went through the same process.
Call Mountain, call SCO, call Mountain, call SCO.  I knew I was in
trouble when the tech at Mountain said that the makers of the OS
should be responsible for the drivers.  I tried to point out that
MS-DOS drivers they distribute were not written by Microsoft, but
rather by them.  Deaf ears.  Anyway, I believe that Mountain has
finally recognized the existence of Xenix and other non DOS users,
and has paid SCO to do the drivers themselves.  If this story is
correct, the drivers should be available this year (soon).

Regarding the previous posting:  I suspect that the problem is that
the people at SCO neglected to mention that the driver, as it now
stands, assumes that no floppy device /dev/fd1 is installed.  The
Mountain DOS drivers permit both to coexist, in other words, while
the Xenix driver does not.  Call Mountain and complain about their
technical support, and then do the same for SCO (if indeed this is
the problem).  This kind of miscommunication really shouldn't hap-
pen.  I've found that it has a lot to do with how on the ball the
person you get on the phone happens to be.  The quality of the sup-
port at Mountain for "alternate" operating systems varies widely.

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%sophist at uchicago.bitnet
   goer at sophist.uchicago.edu         rutgers!oddjob!gide!sophist!goer