Path: santra!tut!enea!mcvax!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!gatech!ufcsv!codas!killer!chip
From: chip@killer.UUCP (Chip Rosenthal)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Streamer
Summary: Tecmar QT60-E with Sytron driver
Keywords: streamer unix 60 cartbridge tape Tecmar
Message-ID: <2926@killer.UUCP>
Date: 15 Jan 88 18:35:31 GMT
References: <9812@santra.UUCP>
Reply-To: chip@killer.UUCP (Chip Rosenthal)
Organization: The Unix(R) Connection BBS, Dallas, Tx
Lines: 70
Xref: santra comp.unix.xenix:1124 comp.sys.ibm.pc:8428

In article <9812@santra.UUCP> hsu@santra.UUCP (Heikki Suonsivu) writes:
>I have been searching for tape drive for PC/AT clones

I thought this might be of general enough interest to post.

We are sharing a Tecmar QT60-E tape drive among several systems, both
SCO XENIX and DOS.  It was purchased at a local Businessland in July
of 1987.  To date, the drive has been reliable and I can recommend it
with a few reservations.

To give you some idea of what we have:

QT60-E tape drive kit		60MB streaming tape 
				DC600A tapes or equiv
				includes interface card, cable, DOS SW, doc
				$1372

Host Adapter Expansion kit	includes interface card, cable, HW only doc
				$159

XENIX Device Drivers		written by Sytron Corp.
				includes Sytos backup SW and doc
				$249

>1) Reliable, no cheap toys.
	Has been to date.
>2) Minimum storage size about 60M.
	This is max 60M...but there might be larger drives available.
	If this is an issue, send mail.  I probably have notes somewhere
	from my conversations with Tecmar.
>3) External drive, with cheap card in machine.
	I don't know if you consider $159 cheap, but I didn't see
	anything much cheaper (that would work!!) when I was looking.
>4) Drivers for Microport unices, xenix can be found, producing tape
>formats compatible with 'bigger' computers like suns, NCR towers and
>such things.
	Tar, cpio, and dd under SCO XENIX work fine.  Note that the
	standard tape driver in SCO V2.2 won't work with this machine.
	You need to get the Sytron driver.  Don't know about uport.
>5) Has good quality/price ratio.
	I'm satisfied.
>6) Adapters for many computers could be interesting...
	I didn't look into this.

Although I have no reservations about the hardware...I have several
problems with the Sytron software.  It does work.  The driver
installed very easily.  But I see several problems:

First...the driver seems fairly stupid.  When the tape is rewinding,
everything stops until the operation is complete.

Second...the Sytos software is horrible.  It is what happens when you
have people with a DOS mentatility producing *nix software.  It is pretty.
It uses menus.  It has colors.  Because it only allows you to program one
backup setting, you can't do little things like different levels of
incremental backups on different directories.  Oh...and also it screws
with the cursor and doesn't restore it when the program exits.  (I am
using some scripts which do a find/tar for my backups.)

Third...the ioctl()'s are different than those that SCO uses, and
therefore the SCO XENIX tape utilities will not work with it.  Also,
they don't document their low level interface, e.g. what are the
ioctl()'s.  Therefore, I can't retension a tape.

In spite of the above, I am getting done what I need.  Therefore, I
am satisfied with what I am using.
-- 
Chip Rosenthal         chip@vector.UUCP		| But if you want to sing the
Dallas Semiconductor     (214) 450-0400		|  blues, then boy you better
{texsun,codas,ihnp4}!killer!vector!chip		|  learn how to lose.