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From: guy%gorodish@Sun.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.att
Subject: Re: cpio for DOS and 3b2 - followup
Message-ID: <31783@sun.uucp>
Date: Fri, 23-Oct-87 03:15:48 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.31783
Posted: Fri Oct 23 03:15:48 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Oct-87 12:25:06 EST
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> Is there any standard for disk or tape cartridge tar (or cpio) format  ?
> I have had no luck getting the 3B2 to read (or write) tape cartridges
> written (or read) by 68000 based unix machines (whether Sys V or
> Sun - BSD). It appears that even at the same density, there is a difference.
> I realize that different tape drives may be aligned differently, is that
> the problem?

There are standards for "tar" and "cpio" archives; our "tar" uses the same
"tar" format as every other "tar" out there, as does our "cpio" (not
surprising, as our "tar" and "cpio" are ultimately derived from the same source
as every other one out there).  (We ignore the problem of the S3 "cpio -c" code
and of non-"-c" "cpio" archives here.)

The problem is with the disk and/or cartridge tape formats.  While there are
standards for cartridge tape formats, this does not guarantee that a tape
written on a drive allegedly conforming to one of these standards can be read
on a different driver allegedly conforming to that same standard.  I have heard
it claimed that the fundamental problem is that cartridge tape drives tend to
be El Cheapo pieces of hardware not built to close tolerances.
	Guy Harris
	{ihnp4, decvax, seismo, decwrl, ...}!sun!guy
	guy@sun.com