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9 Track Linux commands and /Dev

M

Marty

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Jul 26, 2009
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Boulder , Colorado USA
Hi All;

I have my 9 Track Tape connected to my PC, I want to check out the Tape Drive..
I want to see if the Tape Drive is Good, since It has not so far re-act to commands from my DG Eclipse S 130..
And I am trying to eliminate things like the Drive itself and Cables, then the Spectra 20 Board and finally the Eclipse itself..
I know one of the Commands that I can use is MT..
What I don't know is what /Dev do I use for my Drive ??
I am using Red Hat Fedora 20..

THANK YOU Marty
 
Marty said:
Hi All;

I have my 9 Track Tape connected to my PC, I want to check out the Tape Drive..
I want to see if the Tape Drive is Good, since It has not so far re-act to commands from my DG Eclipse S 130..
And I am trying to eliminate things like the Drive itself and Cables, then the Spectra 20 Board and finally the Eclipse itself..
I know one of the Commands that I can use is MT..
What I don't know is what /Dev do I use for my Drive ??
I am using Red Hat Fedora 20..

THANK YOU Marty
Click to expand...

look at
http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/software/tapeutils/
 
Hi All;

THANK YOU Al, I have downloaded the file and I will try it out...
Al, did You get a private message from me, or did I goof up and it did not make it to You ??


THANK YOU Marty
 
Just out of curiosity, Marty, what's the interface from your PC to the drive?

If it's SCSI, the device name will be something like /dev/stx, where x is a number. Also, you'll see "/dev/nstx". The difference is that that "n" version does not rewind after an operation, while the "non-n" one does. You should also see the drive mentioned in the boot-up log, located in the /var/log directory--I think RH still keeps it in /var/log/messages.
 
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Hi All;
Thank You Chuck for Your Reply.. Yes, it is SCSI, I have a small Box that hangs on the back of my Cipher (I think) 990, that converts from twin 50 pin cable to SCSI, and that is Attached to an ATTO ExpressPCI PSC Board..
OK, so I use the /dev/nst01..
I have two of these Boards and If I remember correctly one is good and one is not good..
I don't know which one is in my machine now.. Thank You for Your Help..
I realized my mistake, I was using /dev/st01 instead of /dev/st1..

THANK YOU Marty
 
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I'll add one thing here--that Linux/Unix natively is perhaps not the best OS to use for 9-track tape. The reason is that most of the utilities are geared toward a fixed block (think of it as a disk sector) size. This is not the case for a lot of older tapes--from some of the old mainframes or minis, it's not uncommon to see a dozen different block sizes on a tape--so dd, for example, is not exactly very useful. Unix/Linux tends to use tape devices as backup, not working media, so block sizes are all the same.

John Wilson's tape utils may be what you need.
 
Hi All;
Chuck Thanks for the added input !!!
At present, I am using a "Scratch Tape" and I just want it to Read and Write to the Tape..
Which it is not doing a present..
I FOUND the Problem, I had /dev/st1, it needed to be /dev/st0 !!!!!!!!!!!!
Is John Wilson's tape utils, what is referenced above ???

THANK YOU Marty
 
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Hi All;
Thank You, Chuck, I have it working on the PC, along with the Long cables 50 pin cables, that I checked out on the PC..
So, now I at least know that the Drive is good and the Cables are good..
Still can't get it to 'boot' from the Eclipse S130, using a Spectra 20 Board.. But, at least the Tape Drive works..

THANK YOU Marty
 
SGI's IRIX is very easy to handle w.r.t. non-fixed tape record sizes. I use my CCT drive with an Octane (to read old ANSI and non-ANSI tapes, with sometimes very variable record sizes).
AIX can also handle variable tape record sizes, but it's slightly more cumbersome. I haven't actually tried this with Linux.

-Tor
 
Tor said:
SGI's IRIX is very easy to handle w.r.t. non-fixed tape record sizes. I use my CCT drive with an Octane (to read old ANSI and non-ANSI tapes, with sometimes very variable record sizes).
AIX can also handle variable tape record sizes, but it's slightly more cumbersome. I haven't actually tried this with Linux.
Click to expand...

The problem isn't with Linux's native ability; rather it's a problem with Unix/Linux standard toolset. The sg3_utils package facilitates the sending of SCSI commands directly to a device, but there's no Linux-standard for interchange of files with variable block lengths. So you pretty much have to sharpen your pencil and start coding--or resort to John Wilson's utilities or the like.

There are several tape-image formats used by various emulator packages, but none is particularly complete, nor are they mutually compatible. I suspect that little work will be done to create a universal tape image format that will be respected by all emulators because 9 track tape is considered to be obsolete and not worthy of attention by the mainline Linux community. Heck, now many Linux distros really support the QIC-02 interface?

Oddly, I find that MS-DOS represents a better platform for handling old tapes. Packages such as Outright are really pretty good and easy to use.
 
Hi All;
Thank You both for Your replys..
"" Oddly, I find that MS-DOS represents a better platform for handling old tapes. Packages such as Outright are really pretty good and easy to use. ""
Chuck, I didn't know of anything for MS-DOS or for Windows that would work with my 9 Track, which Is why I used Linux.. I never heard of Outright, I'LL have to see If I can find it..

THANK YOU Marty
 
Chuck(G) said:
I suspect that little work will be done to create a universal tape image format that will be respected by all emulators because 9 track tape is considered to be obsolete
Click to expand...

It won't happen because emulator teams don't talk to each other, or in many cases, don't even know that other efforts exist.
They are all hobby efforts, each doing their own thing blissfully ignorant of each other. I'm on enough of the development mailing lists (SIMH, MAME, ...) to know
there are almost no cross-communications going on.
 
Hi All;

I GOT IT TO try TO BOOT FROM THE TAPE DRIVE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Since it is a scratch Tape, there would be nothing for it to put from the Tape to the Eclipse S 130..

It was my own mistake, I was NOT thinking Clearly, I put '060133 at Location 376, instead of '060122, and wondering why it wouldn't boot on the Address of '000022 on the Spectra Board.. DUH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THANK YOU Marty
 
Al Kossow said:
It won't happen because emulator teams don't talk to each other, or in many cases, don't even know that other efforts exist.
They are all hobby efforts, each doing their own thing blissfully ignorant of each other. I'm on enough of the development mailing lists (SIMH, MAME, ...) to know there are almost no cross-communications going on.
Click to expand...

Lately, I've been using the "Copy out" format of Outright and converting it to whatever needs it. OR is pretty good because it includes a lot of useful tools in the same package.
 
Hi All;

Chuck, Where can I get a copy of Outright, when looking on the Web, all I see is an accounting package, or is that it ????

THANK YOU Marty
 
Marty said:
I have a small Box that hangs on the back of my Cipher (I think) 990, that converts from twin 50 pin cable to SCSI
Click to expand...

I would like to find something like that box, too. I have a Kennedy 9610 drive that uses the dual 50-pin Pertec interface. I have a Unibus interface card to hook it up to my PDP-11/44 project one of these days, but it would be nice to also cobble together some way to connect it to a more modern machine when needed. I've poked around on eBay intermittently, but I haven't found a suitable converter yet.
 
Hi All;
NF6X, what I have is a Cipher CSC 100, Part # 963889-002..
Give me a few minutes and I'LL post some pictures..

001.jpg 002.jpg

THANK YOU Marty
 
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