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From: billsey@agora.rain.com (Bill Seymour)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: Streaming Tapes, Multi-Syncs and Towers
Message-ID: <1991Jan29.191151.22663@agora.rain.com>
Date: 29 Jan 91 19:11:51 GMT
References: <1991Jan16.050943.2082@vax5.cit.cornell.edu> <05709.AA05709@babylon.rmt.sub.org>
Organization: Open Communications Forum
Lines: 68

In article <05709.AA05709@babylon.rmt.sub.org> cbmvax.commodore.com!cbmehq!babylon!rbabel (Ralph Babel) writes:
:In article <1991Jan16.050943.2082@vax5.cit.cornell.edu>
:mlgy@vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes:
:
:: What other 3rd party (PD or commercial) software drivers
:: are there and what hardware do they work with?
:
:It's not really third-party "drivers". The device driver has
:to be supplied by the manufacturer of the SCSI board.
:
:       data to be written to tape
:                   |
:Read() (file mode) | CMD_READ (image mode)
:                   V
: tape backup software (e.g. TapeStore)
:                   |
:        HD_SCSICMD |
:                   V
:             device driver
:                   |
:                   | (magic)
:                   V
:           SCSI host adapter
:                   |
:     SCSI protocol |
:                   V
:             tape streamer
:
:If the tape backup software is an AmigaDOS handler, then the
:usual packet-mechanism is used to send data to be stored to
:the tape handler.

	Examples of this type of software out in the public domain (or
freely distributable) are Markus Wandel's tape-handler and Bob Rothermeyer's
BTNtape-handler. Either will work with many combinations of drives and
controllers. There is also a utility called 'Tabu', which is a stand alone
tape backup program. It has the drive access stuff built in and doesn't
require any special handler. I've tested each of these (using TAR with
the handlers) on a 3000/Archive, a 2000/Nexus/Archive, a 3000/Emulex
and the 2000/Emulex. They all work consistantly, with the best throughput
coming from Tabu in image mode and BTNtape 1.1 in file by file mode.
	Nexus also distributes a tape.device for their board that allows
you to mount a tape for use with either their tape software or for use
with Central Coast's Quarterback software. This is a bit different than
the handlers, since it doesn't allow any 'filesystem' type accesses to
the tape.

:: Also, what tape format should I look for in order to
:: maintain compatibility with Amiga Unix?
:
:Using a tape handler, it should be possible to use "tar". I
:haven't tried it, though. I don't know about stand-alone
:Amiga backup software supporting UNIX format.

	The TAR I use (33860 bytes) works well with either Markus'
or Bob's tape handlers. It writes a format that my XENIX system at
wrok doesn't seem to have any trouble reading, although I haven't
tried an actual restore from my Amiga tapes onto the XENIX system.
:-) It does, however, seem to have troubles reading a tar file
created on the UNIX SYS V.4 system I get me newsfeed from. :-(

:Ralph

-- 
     -Bill Seymour                billsey@agora.uucp or billsey@agora.rain.com
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