Very Computer

by **Craig T Mans** » Sat, 19 Jun 1993 06:15:54

Ok, I would like to ask a few questions about this QIC-40/80 problem.

1) Why is it so hard to make this beast? Is it that through Linux it is
hard to work through the floppy controller?

2) Does Colorado have a UNIX executable, and couldn't this be ported?

3) Couldn't you just make the tape drive a device like the floppy, where you
just mount it, and write to it? Or is the tape architecture different?

Oh well, I am still anxiously waiting for the drivers. Maybe I'll do some
work on it my self.

Albion

by **Brian McCaul** » Sat, 19 Jun 1993 21:47:17

Quote:> Ok, I would like to ask a few questions about this QIC-40/80 problem.

> 1) Why is it so hard to make this beast? Is it that through Linux it is
> hard to work through the floppy controller?

Interrupt timing constriants under a multitasking OS - existing DOS drivers
apparently work by polling and need vitually all the CPU time.

Quote:> 2) Does Colorado have a UNIX executable, and couldn't this be ported?

I've heard that there do exist such things but that they don't actually work.
(Or rather they do so much backspacing that a single use will take a tape
outside its design life - I'm not sure I belive this but it's what
I've heard).

Quote:
> 3) Couldn't you just make the tape drive a device like the floppy, where you
> just mount it, and write to it? Or is the tape architecture different?

Yep, once the hard bit (the low level driver) is done this should be a
relatively easy operation for a non-streaming tape. I've always had my
doubts about the efficacy of random access tape systems though.

Quote:
> Oh well, I am still anxiously waiting for the drivers. Maybe I'll do some
> work on it my self.

You're not the only one - there are several people (including myself) who
have expressed an interest in "having a go". I think we should all subscribe
to the linux-activists tape channel (or possibly create a new channel). We
don't want too much wasted duplication of effort.
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by **John Hay** » Sat, 19 Jun 1993 22:38:51

Just putting my 2 cents worth in. I used OS2 for a year and last fall Colorado finally
got around to writing a driver for ther jumbo 250 that runs under OS2. I spent the
$100 and purchased the software and used it until recentlu ( I removed OS2 from my disk
so I`d have more space for linux - went back to DOS/Windows on a stacked volume - I
needed more cheap space ).

The qic80 tape software that Colorado puts out for OS2 is pretty nice. It runs on the
OS2 desktop and can run concurrently with other applications - using the floppy disk
controller - you just can't use floppy disks while you are running the tape drive.

The purpose of this post is to say that the qic80 tape driver is ( at lease in some`
environments ) a doable thing - Colorado did it.

As a closing comment - I lammented discarding OS2 for Windows - OS2 provides a much
nicer, truly multitasking and highly configurable interface than Windows - when I can
afford a bigger second hard drive I may upgrade and go back to OS2.

This is just a for what it`s worth post.

John Hayes

by **Mark B. Alst** » Wed, 23 Jun 1993 03:58:47

> Ok, I would like to ask a few questions about this QIC-40/80 problem.
>
> 1) Why is it so hard to make this beast? Is it that through Linux it is
> hard to work through the floppy controller?
Interrupt timing constriants under a multitasking OS - existing DOS drivers
apparently work by polling and need vitually all the CPU time.

O.K. so what are the possibilities of writing a driver that will work
under single user mode? We could boot up with no background daemons
and no other users to do our backup.

Albeit this is not a perfect solution but it is much better than the
one I am currently using i.e. taring up everything into 20M chunks,
copying them over to my dos partition, rebooting into dos, using the
Colorado driver to backup to tape, reboot into linux and repeat the
above about 10 times. It's not very fun at all.

Having this limited driver would make me ecstatic. I could finally
wipe dos off the face of my drive :) I could burn my windows manuals.
Life would be great!!!

any info or thoughts will be appreciated.

--

Mark Alston "U.S. out of North America"

by **Adrian Wallasch** » Wed, 23 Jun 1993 23:17:56

>> > Ok, I would like to ask a few questions about this QIC-40/80 problem.

>> > 1) Why is it so hard to make this beast? Is it that through Linux it is
>> > hard to work through the floppy controller?
>> Interrupt timing constriants under a multitasking OS - existing DOS drivers
>> apparently work by polling and need vitually all the CPU time.
>>Having this limited driver would make me ecstatic. I could finally
>>wipe dos off the face of my drive :) I could burn my windows manuals.
>>Life would be great!!!

I just don't believe it's such a problem. Several vendors supply their QIC-40/80
streamer know with Unix-Driver Upgrades (charged separately *grmpf* ~$100).
They must have been written somehow. There must be a solution.

We had a similar interfering problem with dongles our dongle just locks the
parallel port during operation, so could the tape-driver do with the floppy!
Btw. the dongle is also a polling driver locking the system, so what.

I think a polling driver is better than nothing. Having hardware on linux
that significantly slows down the system is nothing new (ADAPTEC/SCSI phew).
But how long a day do you have your tape working ?

If someone sends me a copy of the technical notes (and be it scanned gif
or whatever!). I'll try write the damned thing!

So long,

prefect

by **Jerry Shekh** » Thu, 24 Jun 1993 07:41:51

:
: I just don't believe it's such a problem. Several vendors supply their
: QIC-40/80 streamer know with Unix-Driver Upgrades (charged separately
: *grmpf* ~$100). They must have been written somehow. There must be a
: solution.
:

My SVR4 Unix vendor (MST) ships an excellent Archive XL (QIC-80) driver for
their SVR4. It supports the tape drive as a third floppy device and doesn't
slow down the system much at all. It "backtracks" once in a while, but it's
really not bad. The point is, it's certainly not impossible.
--
+-------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------+
| JERRY J. SHEKHEL | Molecular Simulations Inc. | Time just fades the pages |
| Drummers do it... | Burlington, MA USA | in my book of memories. |

+-------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------+

by **levin..** » Fri, 02 Jul 1993 14:04:57

> > Ok, I would like to ask a few questions about this QIC-40/80 problem.

> > 1) Why is it so hard to make this beast? Is it that through Linux it is
> > hard to work through the floppy controller?
> Interrupt timing constriants under a multitasking OS - existing DOS drivers
> apparently work by polling and need vitually all the CPU time.

> O.K. so what are the possibilities of writing a driver that will work
> under single user mode? We could boot up with no background daemons
> and no other users to do our backup.

> Albeit this is not a perfect solution but it is much better than the
> one I am currently using i.e. taring up everything into 20M chunks,
> copying them over to my dos partition, rebooting into dos, using the
> Colorado driver to backup to tape, reboot into linux and repeat the
> above about 10 times. It's not very fun at all.

> Having this limited driver would make me ecstatic. I could finally
> wipe dos off the face of my drive :) I could burn my windows manuals.
> Life would be great!!!

> any info or thoughts will be appreciated.

> --

> Mark Alston "U.S. out of North America"

I agree with you 110%. I would like to see these drivers. If we could get
about 100 of us users together, and put in about $90 and mail it to Colorado
Memory Systems, they would probably recompile their XENIX drivers (which they
do have by the way) and make them run under Linux.

I have not received a reply from them yet.

--
Eric Levinson

I can also be reached on my BBS system, Color Galaxy Milky Way (415) 883-0696

Very Computer

QIC-40/80 drivers.

QIC-40/80 drivers.

QIC-40/80 drivers.

QIC-40/80 drivers.

QIC-40/80 drivers.

QIC-40/80 drivers.

QIC-40/80 drivers.

QIC-40/80 drivers.