Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!icus!lenny
From: lenny@icus.ICUS.COM (Lenny Tropiano)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.3b1
Subject: Re: mkfs /dev/floppy-tape ; mount /dev/floppy-tape /mnt
Summary: Don't bother.
Message-ID: <1345@icus.ICUS.COM>
Date: 2 Jun 91 19:15:55 GMT
References: <1991May29.165557.5351@uublip.uucp>
Reply-To: lenny@icus.ICUS.COM (Lenny Tropiano)
Organization: ICUS Software Systems, Austin, Texas
Lines: 22

In article <1991May29.165557.5351@uublip.uucp> blip@uublip.uucp (Brant Pellett) writes:
|>I have an AT&T 3b1 running 3.51m with in internal 320K FD and an external
|>floppy tape (looks like streamer, but it's not...)
|>
|>I'm trying to format my FLOPPY TAPE so I can mount it as a (dreadfully slow)
|>second drive.  Is this fultile?  Has anyone ever done it?  How slow does it
|>get?
|>
[...]
The one thing that is missing is the block-device necessary for a mounted
filesystem.  This tp.o device driver does not support this.  Even if it did,
it's very slow.  The same tape drive on 3B2/400 formats a tape in 20 minutes,
makes a filesystem on tape device in 2 hours, and accessing the drive is
very slow.  I guess having a 23mb filesystem on occasion would be useful, but
it CANNOT be done on a 3B1 as the device driver was written.

-Lenny

-- 
| Lenny Tropiano           ICUS Software Systems        lenny@icus.ICUS.COM |
| ...!{ames,cs.utexas.edu,pacbell}!icus!lenny           attmail!icus!lenny  |
+---------------- 14300 Tandem Blvd #222, Austin, TX 78728 -----------------+