SCSI tape question

[Jon Elson]

On 12/12/2014 09:41 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
>
> This is a bog-standard 1600 PE density 9 track tape on a 
> 10.5" reel.
> So no surprises in the physical format.  Just some 
> screwball controller programming.
OK, that narrows things down QUITE a bit.  I worked with 
some Exabyte
drives and others that had a lot of constraints on what you 
could do,
and you could do some interesting things.  I think you could 
write
zero-length blocks, and they would show up just like that when
read.  Clearly on 9-track, there SHOULD BE no such thing as a
zero-length block, but I suppose some drives could actually 
write
such a thing at 1600.  A preamble, CRC, LRCC and postamble, with
no data.  But, that OUGHT to be an illegal command.

Jon