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From: gj@bubba.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: TAR DOES NOT SWAP BYTES
Message-ID: <154@bubba.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 7-Oct-85 22:34:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: bubba.154
Posted: Mon Oct  7 22:34:38 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 11-Oct-85 07:15:47 EDT
References: <235@thunder.UUCP> <604@neuro1.UUCP> <2818@sun.uucp> <471@mtxinu.UUCP> <2852@sun.uucp>
Organization: COSI Texas,  Austin, Texas
Lines: 28

> 
> I think the problem is with the 3B20 tape drive, not with "tar" on the 3B20.
> Some tape controller (which I think they've junked in favor of a sane one)
> imposes a rather small minimum block size; "tar cb 20 ..." exceeds this
> limit.  This screws "cpio" over, too; this from CPIO(1) in the S5 User's
> Manual:
> 
> 
> For some reason, the "tar" manual page doesn't contain a similar warning.
> Perhaps the people who wrote it thought "tar" was a thing of the past, soon
> to be completely replaced by "cpio".
> 
> 	Guy Harris

I discovered that the maximum blocksize on a 3B5 I used was 8K.  So
much for reading tar tapes written on a VAX (with default block size).
This limitation was documented, nice of them, huh?  When I called
AT&T support and told them that this was highly undesirable, they
politely informed me that they didn't care.


-- 

George Jenkins, COSI Texas, Inc., 4412 Spicewood Springs #801, Austin TX
78759 USA

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