QIC02

My memory is failing again. It's been maybe 15 years since I last fooled with QIC02-interfaced drives and I'm trying to avoid doing homework that I've probably done years ago. I've got two QIC02 drive setups. One's a Tandberg TDC3650 drive connected to a Alliance Technology ISA half-card. The other's a Cipher CP125BA connected to a Wangtek 5150. I'm guessing that the Wangtek card supports hardware compression (it's got an 8085 on it), while the Alliance looks to be pretty minimalist. So here's what I'm wondering. Without preferring any particular data format (e.g. tar), what x86 platform has the best support for these things? Linux? Xenix? MS-DOS? OS/2? Windows? I've got the distinct feeling that I've been here before, but I can't recall what I discovered. Can anyone help me slice through the mental fog? Thanks, Chuck