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From: braun@m10ux.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Ampex megastore hard disk host adapter
Message-ID: <176@m10ux.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 1-Apr-87 17:42:43 EST
Article-I.D.: m10ux.176
Posted: Wed Apr  1 17:42:43 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 4-Apr-87 10:06:07 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ
Lines: 37

I just bought (at the Computer Swap America in San Jose last weekend)
an Ampex Megastore host adapter card for the IBM PC.
This device is (apparently) a SCSI host adapter designed
by Ampex, which was sold as part of an add-on hard disk system
for PC's.  I would like to use this as a general-purpose SCSI controller
for disks and tapes, but I have no documentation for it, other
that a floppy that has formatting utilities for a hard disk.
Does anyone have the entire system, or any description of the hardware
I bought?  I suppose I could plug a generic SCSI controller and drive
into it, and run the program on the disk, but I really would like to
use it for more than that.

If I give up on this, can anyone recommend a good SCSI host adapter
to buy (that has good documentation, device drivers, etc.)?

I also purchased a Memtec model 420/90 tape drive, along with
a SCSI controller.  This stores 20MB on a tape that looks like
an audio cassette, and fits in a 1/2 height floppy mounting space.
It works great (but not on a PC yet).

My questions about this are:

Has anyone seen the cassettes it uses advertised anywhere?
They look like audio cassettes, but without a pressure pad
opposite the head opening.  They must be certified for 1000 FPTI.

Also, is there any PD software that could be used with this
to do file-by-file backups, etc?  Ideally, I would like
something like tar, that I could link to my own driver
routines for this drive.  Any wisdom about tape backup
systems would also be appreciated.


-- 

Doug Braun		AT+T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ
m10ux!braun		201 582-7039