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From: earle@smeagol.UUCP (Greg Earle)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Tar(1) portability???
Message-ID: <538@smeagol.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-Jan-86 18:03:12 EST
Article-I.D.: smeagol.538
Posted: Fri Jan 10 18:03:12 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 14-Jan-86 03:26:36 EST
References: <535@smeagol.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: Spacecraft Data Systems, JPL, Pasadena, CA
Lines: 36

Thanks to everyone who responded to my question about tar(1) portability.
For those interested, the consensus was :

(1) The old Cipher drive on the Perkin Elmer is probably brain damaged,
and can't read my tape(s) due to different gap size, etc.  In this case,
the only solution would be to write the 'tar' file onto the tape via dd,
and see if it can be "un-dd'ed" off of the Cipher.

(2) The tape controller on the AT&T 3b5 can't handle the default tar block
size of 20.  Some people suggested 5, but I think (from the blocksize:2
problem) that the safest way is bs=1.

(3) System V 'tar' doesn't like the directory header info that BSD tar puts
on it.  You must use the '-o' flag in BSD tar to suppress this.

My 'solution' (I had to get the file before I posted the question) was to
call up my system and use cu/tip to download it.  Thank goodness for modems...

Thanks again.

        Greg Earle
        JPL
        sdcrdcf!smeagol!earle   (UUCP)
        ia-sun2!smeagol!earle@cit-vax.arpa      (ARPA)

-------------------------
Know Your Culture:
"Speed" and "The Dream is Alive" -
Two movies about (1) guess what ; and (2) footage shot from the Shuttle
(during Sally Ride's mission) of the Earth and various other sundry
locales.  Shot in 135 mm film, and playing at a 5-story IMAX theater
near you.  Watch as your stomach turns inside out when you see a fighter
do a barrel roll over a mountain top (in Speed); the shots in "Dream..."
are indescribably breathtaking (narration by Walter Cronkite ... and that's
the way it is).  Beats the hell out of Return of Sun of Revenge of Rocky IV
(or whatever the nerds are raving about in net.movies :-)