Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!csus.edu!ucdavis!csusac!unify!longbow!ttank!fbits!Mariusz
From: Mariusz@fbits.ttank.com (Mariusz Stanczak)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.3b1
Subject: Re: "Floppy tape"
Summary: scsi first
Keywords: interface, floppy tape, scsi
Message-ID: <82@fbits.ttank.com>
Date: 25 Feb 91 03:54:40 GMT
References: <1991Feb18.162005.15219@sci.ccny.cuny.edu> <73@fbits.ttank.com> <1991Feb20.030951.3963@ceilidh.beartrack.com>
Organization: Forth Bits
Lines: 32

In article <1991Feb20.030951.3963@ceilidh.beartrack.com> dnichols@ceilidh.beartrack.com (DoN Nichols) writes:
[...]					[Archive]
>	First, we want to use such a drive, second, if we don't make a scsi
>interface and driver for the drive, we want to make an INTELLIGENT
>controller to live in the slot.  It should have a 6809 or better for

Having a choice between puting effort into "floppy tape" improvments, and
getting the SCSI card (hey, who's working on this?) out, my vote (my recent
tape package aquisition notwithstanding) goes to the SCSI project.
If properly implemented it'd offer flexibility never before available to
the Upc, and would extend the systems usefull life by a great number of
years.  Having had a minor part in SCSI I/F undertaking for a different
machine, I'm in a posesion of assembler source for such a driver that I'm 
willing to share with the people involved in getting such I/F for the 3B1.
There was a custom hardware instead of the usual NCR chip, and it's written
not in the funky USG syntax assembler (not to mention a different OS), but
large parts of the code could be rescued.

BTW, my worries concerning the way "Floppy tape" works, and the potential
reliability problems may have been premature... I examined the head, and
to my surprise, the thing is absolutely flawless (well polished too ;-))!
Nice, for a previously owned piece of hardware.  I'd like to second the
recent posting about Computer Horizons... that's where I got the subsystem,
and I'm very satified with how things went... from start to finish.

For what it's worth,

-Mariusz
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