13 Jul
2004
13 Jul
'04
12:47 p.m.
Now, in the loft I have a pair of Archive 5945C 60MB drives
They're QIC-36 interface drives apparently.
--
Correct, the basic drive mech is QIC-36
--
Emulex MW0210402's
--
Should be MT02
--
in order to stand a
chance of reading these tapes, do I need to know what board was
originally used (and even which drive!) in order to write them?
--
It would certainly help. MT02's are SCSI common command set and
can read QIC-11 or QIC-24 formats.
If the carts are DC300,450, or 600 and they were written on a
80's - ish unix box, they will probably be readable with a 5945
and MT02.
Be ABSOLUTELY sure that the capstan hasn't deteriorated before
trying to do anything with a tape you care about, though. Most
drives that old have rubber that has turned to goo, or WILL turn
to goo once heat is applied though the motor shaft.
Docs for both the Archive drive and MT02 are up on bitsavers.
14 Jul
14 Jul
3:48 a.m.
On Tue, 2004-07-13 at 21:47, Al Kossow wrote:
Emulex MW0210402's
--
Should be MT02
A google for Emulex MW0210402 turns up:
http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/Sun4/RMVBL_Emulex_MT02.html
...which *suggests* that it's an MT02 board, just with a potentially
different ROM and (better?) support for both Archive and Wangtek drives.
I'm assuming from that page that they're interchangable as far as
driving an Archive tape drive. Certainly the board layout looks the
same. I'll give it a try...
MT02's are SCSI common command set and
can read QIC-11 or QIC-24 formats.
If the carts are DC300,450, or 600 and they were written on a
80's - ish unix box, they will probably be readable with a 5945
and MT02.
Good to hear. I've just found a original Olivetti floppy amongst the
pile containing tape drivers for a 3B2 machine, so there's a reasonable
chance that's what the tapes were written on. (all these floppies,
tapes, and general other detritus were ust tipped into three drawers in
a storage room, so there's no guarantees.
I actually remember someone from the same site offering a 3B2 last year,
so that could well have been the very same system which wrote these
tapes.
Wish I'd grabbed it now as there's a pretty good chance all of these
floppies (and I'm hoping the tapes too) were once internal to the
offices of Topologika (and so quite a nice find for an Acorn collector).
Be ABSOLUTELY sure that the capstan hasn't
deteriorated before
trying to do anything with a tape you care about, though. Most
drives that old have rubber that has turned to goo, or WILL turn
to goo once heat is applied though the motor shaft.
It feels good - it doesn't seem to have dried but on the other hand I
can't leave a mark on it with my fingernail so unless it changes
drastically when warm it sohuld be ok. I'll test with a blank tape
first, of course :) (somewhere I actually have a cleaning kit for these
drives too)
Docs for both the Archive drive and MT02 are up on
bitsavers.
Thanks! :)
cheers,
Jules
1:42 p.m.
On Wed, 2004-07-14 at 12:48, Jules Richardson wrote:
On Tue, 2004-07-13 at 21:47, Al Kossow wrote:
Darn, seems like it doesn't get along well with Adaptec SCSI controllers
:-(
Without multiple LUN support enabled, I get a timeout for the Inquiry
command on booting from the Adaptec BIOS, and the Linux AIC7xxx driver
gets horribly confused trying to talk to the board.
With multiple LUN support enabled, the Adaptec BIOS finds the board and
rather than timing out reports an 'unknown device' - it then seems to
hide the board from the system, as Linux doesn't even acknowledge that
there's anything at that particular ID.
Grumble! Unfortunately the only SCSI boards I have for PCs are Adaptecs,
so looks like I'm out of luck.
It's possible the Emulex board is broken I suppose, but according to the
doc for it on bitsavers it should do quite a lot of diags on the SCSI
controller at power-up, so given the flashing green light it gives me,
it should be ok.
The documentation suggests it is proper SCSI though, supporting
everything I'd expect, so I'm pretty surprised that it doesn't work.
Funnily enough, the Omti series SCSI/ST506 bridge boards also result in
timeout errors during Inquiry against an Adaptec board. I'll have to see
if they use the same SCSI chip as the Emulex - maybe there's something
Adaptec cards don't like about that specific chip...
Anyone on this side of the pond got a non-Adaptec PC SCSI controller
that they don't want? :-)
cheers,
Jules
Emulex MW0210402's
--
Should be MT02
A google for Emulex MW0210402 turns up:
http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/Sun4/RMVBL_Emulex_MT02.html
...which *suggests* that it's an MT02 board, just with a potentially
different ROM and (better?) support for both Archive and Wangtek drives.
I'm assuming from that page that they're interchangable as far as
driving an Archive tape drive. Certainly the board layout looks the
same. I'll give it a try...
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