Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Reading 12255 byte tape blocks on System V
Message-ID: <7849@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: 6 May 88 19:17:22 GMT
References: <741@hdr.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 12
Keywords: 9-track tape driver problem

In article <741@hdr.UUCP> eric@hdr.UUCP (Eric J. Johnson) writes:
>I am having trouble reading 9-track tapes that have a blocksize greater than
>8192 bytes on my AT&T 3B15 running System V 2.1.1 equipped with a standard
>1600 bpi 9-track 1/2 inch tape drive.

I don't have direct experience with this configuration, but I have heard
from usually-reliable sources that the limit is in the magtape controller
itself, not in the operating system software.  Note that 8K is 4 times
larger than the ANSI standard requires.  Whoever supplied your 12K tapes
should be tasked with providing something that conforms to standards so
you can read it.  Alternatively you could transcribe the tapes on some
other system that supports larger tape block sizes.