🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <12656@well.UUCP> gors@well.UUCP (Gordon Stewart) writes:

   Path: psuvax1!rutgers!apple!well!gors
   From: gors@well.UUCP (Gordon Stewart)
   Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt
   Keywords: Tape compatibility Sun AIX RT
   Date: 11 Jul 89 21:07:27 GMT
   Distribution: comp
   Lines: 14

   Does anyone out there have experience in reading Sun cartridge
   tapes (or any other workstation tapes) on the IBM RT's tape drive?

Yes, we do it all the time.

   I have been told that the IBM format is not compatible with any of
   the QIC formats - can this be?

There are two models of streaming tape drive from IBM.  The model 1 will
read QIC-11/24 format but only writes QIC-24.  The model 2 will read
QIC-11/24 and whatever the `new' 160Mb density is called, but will only
write the highest density.  It will also not write on some 1/4" cartridges
that are QIC-11 only.  Way to go IBM.  I always thought compatibility was
one of IBM's bywords.

Just to make things more interesting.  You can only have one streaming tape
on an RT system so you either need two RTs, or plug and unplug tape drives.

   I would much appreciate an e-mail reply if you have any insights and/or
   experience here...

This needed to be shared.

   Michael Sierchio
   -- 
				   {apple, pacbell, hplabs, ucbvax}!well!gors
							   gors@well.sf.ca.us
   (Doolan) | (Meyer) | (Sierchio) | (Stewart)

--Dan Ehrlich
--
Dan Ehrlich <ehrlich@shire.cs.psu.edu> | Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are
The Pennsylvania State University      | my own, and should not be attributed
Department of Computer Science         | to anyone else, living or dead.
University Park, PA   16802            |

In article <12656@well.UUCP> gors@well.UUCP (Gordon Stewart) writes:
>I have been told that the IBM format is not compatible with any of
>the QIC formats - can this be?

While this is not exactly true, it does highlight one of the stupidest
mistakes that IBM has made on the RT.  They released a new tape drive
recently, called the 6157-002.  This drive can *read* QIC-11, QIC-24
and QIC-150 (I think that's right - the high density 150Mb format).
But it can ONLY write QIC-150!  This means that systems with the new
tape drive are incompatible with RTs that have the old tape drive -
it is absolutely impossible to write a tape on the new drive and read
it on an old one.  Then, to top it off, they dropped the old drive
from the price list, so you can't buy it any more even if you want
to!  Thus they are saying that you either have to buy incompatible
systems, or just give up buying RTs altogether.  Sigh.

jw