Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!rutgers!cmcl2!phri!marob!daveh
From: daveh@marob.MASA.COM (Dave Hammond)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix
Subject: Re: Need advice on a tape drive
Message-ID: <551@marob.MASA.COM>
Date: 14 Feb 89 15:05:37 GMT
References: <3700025@eecs.nwu.edu>
Reply-To: daveh@marob.masa.com (Dave Hammond)
Organization: ESCC  New York City
Lines: 25

In article <3700025@eecs.nwu.edu> Richard Skrenta writes:
>I need to add some form of tape backup to my Xenix system. [...]
>It seems that most of the tape backup units out there were primarily designed
>for DOS; some manufacturers even charge extra for the Xenix drivers.  And
>I've seen some horror stories about tape units posted here....
>
>Does anyone know of a model that they can recommend?  Any to stay away from?

I've had good luck with the Everex and Mountain cartridge tape drives.
They are available in both internal and external versions, are supplied
with a Wangtek-style controller and do NOT require vendor-supplied
drivers, as SCO supports most drives which use Archive or Wangtek-style
controllers.  "Mkdev tape" handles the entire installation.

I recommend *against* purchasing Emerald Systems XNX- series cartridge
tape drives.  They require a proprietary controller to operate, and
Xenix 2.3.1 apparently *lost* its previous ability (demonstrated in 2.2)
to handle these drives [a late-night tech support hack mused about
not having an Emerald in-house to test the 2.3.1 drivers prior to release,
and placing Emerald on the list of supported drives under the "assumption"
that what worked correctly on 2.2 would work correctly on 2.3].

--
Dave Hammond
daveh@marob.masa.com