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From: fmcgee@cuuxb.ATT.COM (~XT6561110~Frank McGee~C23~L25~6326~)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386,comp.sys.att
Subject: Re: 6386 WGS Questions
Summary: need unix drivers for the controller, tapes and floppies are portable
Keywords: Compatability Questions
Message-ID: <4306@cuuxb.ATT.COM>
Date: 9 Nov 89 16:37:51 GMT
Expires: 23 Nov 89 00:00:00 GMT
References: <6358@cbnewsm.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: fmcgee@cuuxb.UUCP (Frank W. McGee)
Followup-To: comp.sys.att
Distribution: na
Organization: AT&T Computer Systems, Lisle, IL
Lines: 42

In article <6358@cbnewsm.ATT.COM> dab@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (david.a.berk) writes:
>1) I'm contemplating buying a Perstore Hard Disk Controller which is
>   supposed to increase my hard disk capacity by a factor of 1.9.
>   Does anyone have any advise or experiences using this board with
>   AT&T System V.3.2 Unix ?  (Perstore informed me that it has been 
>   tested on Interactive Unix and runs well).

You'll need a Unix disk driver for the Perstore controller; AT&T
doesn't provide this.  The exception would be if the controller was
hardware compatible with a Western Digital ST506 or ESDI controller.
Notice my emphasis on hardware compatibility, not software.  Since
Unix doesn't use the ROM BIOS, BIOS extensions (ie, a ROM that makes
the controller look like a Western Digital) doesn't buy you anything.
It has to look like a Western Digital without the use of any ROM BIOS
extensions.  Also, the AT&T boot floppies won't recognize it since
they don't know about Perstore controllers.

>2) I bought a 60 meg Tape Backup unit from Bell Tech. about a year ago.
>   Can the AT&T Tape Backup read from a Intel Tape and vica versa.

If you are running under Unix, the Bell Tech unit should be portable
with AT&T units.  Be carefull of media incompatibilities; it's a good
idea to make sure all your drives use the same density.  This is
because although a 120/125 MB tape drive can read a 60 MB tape, it
can't write a 60 MB tape.  So if you have one machine with a 120 MB
unit and one with a 60 MB unit, you can't transfer data from the 120
MB machine to the 60 MB machine (although you can go the other way).

>3. Can the 6386 read a floppy witten by a 3b2 ?

File systems - no (byte ordering).

cpio archives - yes, if you use the -c (ascii header compatibility 
option).  The proper device nodes for 3B floppies on 386 unix are
suffixed with "5qt" (for example /dev/dsk/f05qt or /dev/rdsk/f05qt).

Hope this answers your question,

-- 
Frank McGee, AT&T
Tier 3 Indirect Channel Sales Support
attmail!fmcgee