Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!hp-pcd!hpfcso!hpfcdj!kinsell From: kinsell@hpfcdj.HP.COM (Dave Kinsell) Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp Subject: Re: Exabyte on an HP-720 Message-ID: <17330037@hpfcdj.HP.COM> Date: 26 Jun 91 01:13:23 GMT References: Organization: Hewlett Packard -- Fort Collins, CO Lines: 35 Bruce L. Gotwols writes: >We have been successful in making an Exabyte work on an HP 9000/360 (Motorola >based) workstation. In that case we were running HP-UX v7.something in >contrast to the new workstation which runs HP-UX v8.01 . I am reasonably >certain we were doing everything right on the new workstation as we tried >many combinations of minor device numbers in addition to the ones we used on >the older workstation. Also we jumped back and forth between the two >workstations in a matter of minutes. >My preliminary conclusion is that HP has changed the rmt driver so that it >will only work with their own DAT tape drive. This possibility was mentioned >recently on this news group by a reader who had seen the driver source code. I think you're jumping to some hasty conclusions here. There isn't one rmt driver, there's really three quite distinct drivers for the 400s, 700s, and 800s. The comments you saw were very specifically about the 8.0 release for S800 machines. 8.0 for S300/400 still provides the basic read/write functionality on the Exabytes. Functionality on S700 machines wasn't disabled, it simply never has worked, and it was never was an objective to make it work. Exabyte started shipping well before SCSI-2 was ever defined, and it's really not surprising that a driver taking advantage of SCSI-2 features may not be compatible with it. That's not due to any deep dark conspiracy, it's just a fact of life. The philosophy for outside peripheral support has been to allow third-parties to provide it, and let them assume the support work. Let me assure you, supporting peripherals actually does entail real, honest work, both in the original implementation and in continuing maintenance. There are two vendors providing Exabyte solutions for S300/400, and it would be reasonable to expect similar arrangements to develop for S700 machines in the future. Regards Dave Kinsell kinsell@hpfcmb.hp.com