Colorado Memory Systems Jumbo Tape

[KLARICH TERRY JAME]

In article <1990Jul9.210634.21093 at d.cs.okstate.edu> klarich at d.cs.okstate.edu I wrote
>First of all, I would like to type my thanks to thoses who responded to my
> questions concerning these tape drives.  I got one last Friday and
>installed it successfully.  I have no complaints as yet.  Everything works
>as advertized.  The installation was rather borring.  But, I feel some
>people might be interested in what I actually did.  I did not order the
>controller.  I am using my floppy card.  But, I have two floppies already.
>Being as I did not want to part with ether of my floppy drives, I decided
>to see if I could get two drives to be the second drive (fd196ds9 and
>rctmini in my case).  I clamped another edge connector on a floppy cable.
>The new connector was attached as drive 1 (b).  All I actually did is to
>run the drive select wire for the original and the new connectors through
>my turbo button om my case.  Sence I wasn't using my turbo botton, no
>problem.  Now, the button selects the drive I need (the tape drive or the
>floppy).  It seems to be working fine.


I have found a problem with my idea discussed here.  When the machine is
booted, the floppy is available until the tape drive is used.  After this
point, the device /dev/fd196ds9 can't be opened.  I am assuming this goes for
all rfd1* and fd1* devices.  Now, I am kind of stuck.  I don't want to have to
give up on of my serial ports for a tape controller card.  I am using irq lines
2, 3, 4, and 5 for serial lines already.  It is my understanding that the
controller card will use irq 5.

Terry Klarich <klarich at d.cs.okstate.edu> or <terry at unx.ucc.okstate.edu>