🚀 go-pugleaf

Some time ago I tried to get the same information, by posting to
internet and Compuserve.  Colorado Memory and other vendors all
refused to provide software interfaces to their QIC-80 drives,
claiming that they weren't meant for use as DOS devices.  That
was not satisfactory but its all they'd tell me.  As a result
I do know where to begin, but not much more.  

First you have to decide
whether you really need a DOS device driver that treats the QIC-80
as though it were a disk drive.  If that's true, give up, it can't
be done in a satisfactory way.  If instead you just want to write and
read blocks of data in a sequential fashion and are willing to keep track
of where in a file each record starts, etc, then you've got a chance.
This is my situation, since all I wanted to do was store large blocks 
of data on the tape and associate a name and starting location with 
each, which is what the backup software that comes with the tape does.

Second, you'd have to get the QIC-80 standard from whatever committee
keeps track of these things.  That's what CMS told me to do, and they can
provide the name and address if pressed.  

Third, you'd have to write a device handler that deals with the
drive controler and drive directly.  There are some proprietary
tricks involved that may or may not be part of QIC-80.  For
example the CMS drive shares the floppy cable with my 
B drive.  The CMS software knows how to turn the tape drive on and
the floppy off even though they're connected to the same
interface.  How?

Clearly the vendors of QIC-80 drives, like Colorado Memory, have
solved all of the above and could easily provide the device handler
needed to perform a simple set of I/O functions.  It is annoying and
frustrating that they refuse to do so when asked.  Hopefully one
among them will see a competitive advantage in making such
software available, but to date all I've contacted have the same
attitude as CMS- "our equipment is only intended for DOS file
backup, and is unusable for other purposes".


Harvey Shulman
Ohio State University