OT: Need Unix tech in Springfield, Missouri area

Not in my experience; I've run tar to tape devices, which are character special devices, often enough. (Of course, this is not to say that there don't exist tar implementations bizarre enough to insist on block devices. Just that I've not run into any, and any claim that "tar" (to the extent that "tar" is a single thing) requires them is false.) And tar definitely knows how to write to a pipe; you could always do tar cf - ... | cat > /dev/... though I suspect most tar implementations will work fine with tar cf - ... > /dev/... even if they won't accept tar cf /dev/... ... /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B