Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!apollo!beierl_c
From: beierl_c@apollo.COM (Christopher Beierl)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: Apollo-Sun cartridge tape reading thru tar?
Message-ID: <43df5b80.19050@apollo.COM>
Date: 16 Jun 89 22:27:00 GMT
References: <8906150532.AA02968@umix.cc.umich.edu>,<541@parcplace.pplace.COM>
Reply-To: beierl_c@apollo.COM (Christopher Beierl)
Organization: Apollo Computer, Chelmsford, MA
Lines: 36

In article <8906150532.AA02968@umix.cc.umich.edu> GBOPOLY1@NUSVM.BITNET (fclim) writes:
>When you reading or writing a cartridge tape on an Apollo, do a
>    % /com/rbak -dev c -rewind
>or
>    % mt -f /dev/rct8 rewind
>first before any other operations.  You also need to specify a blocking
>factor of 1 when using tar.

Prior to SR10 one was required to specify of blocking factor of 1 when WRITING
tar tapes on Apollo.  AS OF SR10 THIS RESTRICTION HAS BEEN REMOVED.

In article <541@parcplace.pplace.COM> khaw@pplace.COM (Mike Khaw) writes:

><8906150532.AA02968@umix.cc.umich.edu>, by GBOPOLY1@NUSVM.BITNET (fclim):
>> There's is a question of QIC24 that I can't answer.  This is available
>> on Sun cartridge tape drive.  If your Sun has this, then probably you
>> can't do file transfers between Apollo and Sun.
>
>This confused me.  My experience is that your Sun MUST have a drive that
>does QIC-24 format to interoperate with an Apollo.  Conventionally, a
>Sun with a single cartridge drive uses /dev/rst0 (and /dev/nrst0) for
>QIC-11, and /dev/rst8 (and /dev/nrst8) for QIC-24.  Some old Suns have
>drives that only do QIC-11 (which is why SunOS used to be distributed on
>tapes that you had to read with /dev/rst0) but most of the Suns I've used
>do both formats (and as of SunOS 4.0, the distribution tapes are made to
>be read with /dev/rst8).

This is correct.  Apollo supports only QIC-24 cartridge tapes.  One must use the
QIC-24 device(s) on the Sun (/dev/rst8, /dev/nrst8) to read and/or write a tape
compatible with Apollo.

-- 
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 Christopher T. Beierl                         Internet: beierl_c@apollo.com
 Apollo Computer, Inc.      UUCP: {mit-eddie,yale,uw-beaver}!apollo!beierl_c
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