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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!news.hawaii.edu!ames!decwrl!csus.edu!netcomsv!mork!hasty From: hasty@netcom.com (Amancio Hasty Jr) Subject: Re: Writing a driver for QIC-40, floppy controller tape drives Message-ID: <19mma1m.hasty@netcom.com> Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 22:52:48 GMT Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) References: <greg.712272225@hibp1.ecse.rpi.edu> <151sfdINNreh@network.ucsd.edu> Keywords: QIC-40 tape In article <151sfdINNreh@network.ucsd.edu> brian@ucsd.edu (Brian Kantor) writes: >In article <greg.712272225@hibp1.ecse.rpi.edu> greg@ecse.rpi.edu (Greg) writes: >> Meanwhile, I wonder if anyone has any info on this type of drive. Right now, > >The documents describing the QIC interfaces are available from Quarter >Inch Cartridge Standards, Inc, somewhere in the Bay Area on 805-963-3853. > >QIC-40 and QIC-80 apparently describe the tape formats. QIC-117 is the >floppy-controller-style interface. Or so the people at Colorado Memory >Systems say. > >I don't know how much they standards cost. Our library has copies, but >they're checked out right now so I haven't seen them. The standards are for free! Just give the Standards a call an request the standards --- thats all what I did to get the standards. >From what I heard from different sources QIC-40 is not easy to implement (which can be construed as a challenge), also the QIC-40 demands stringent timing constraints as to when to respond to the tape drive. I know that sounds blasphemous but I am wondering if there is a dos program capable of reading unix/file system which we can use to help us backup our unix file systems. Currently, I have colorado tape drive collecting dust and 300 MBs of binaries/sources. Not a pleasant scenario! Cheers, amancio