UNIX Driver for JUMBO Tape Backup

[gaf]

In article <3819 at sactoh0.SAC.CA.US> enc at sactoh0.SAC.CA.US (Erez N. Carmel) writes:
>I have a Colorado Memory Systems tape backup, which used to serve
>under DOS.  CMS does not seem to have a Unix driver available. Did
>anybody have any Unix success with this drive?  Can VPIX help?

The CMS Jumbo tape we have looks to the PC like a floppy disk drive, and
2.2 Interactive Unix has a driver for "floppy tape" drives.  Our experience
with it has been less than wonderful, though.

The tape moves *very* slowly, with *very* long pauses for no obvious reason.
We've tried both the simple (cat /etc/passwd >/dev/ftape) and the complex
(find / -print | cpio -ocBv | ftape /dev/ftape), with the above result.
We even went so far as to format the tape and started to do a verify operation.
45 minutes into the verify we ran out of patience and decided it wasn't
worth the trouble.

We've got a Wangtek streamer on order now.
-- 
Guy Finney					It's that feeling of deja-vu
UUCS inc.   Phoenix, Az				all over again.
ncar!noao!asuvax!hrc!uucs1!gaf	sun!sunburn!gtx!uucs1!gaf