Writing SCSI 9-Track Mag Tapes from Windows/DOS

Dave G4UGM dave.g4ugm at gmail.com
Sat Oct 3 03:47:18 CDT 2015


Seeing as all the programs mentioned appear to only have  Windows versions available then if by "this kind of approach" you meant using the programs mentioned, its not going to work on Linux "out of the box".
A quick web search shows that at least some SCSI adaptors don't work in the way I expected

http://forum.silverfast.com/canoscan-2700-and-scsi-usb-adaptator-t4703.html

which implies that rather than present the disk to Windows as a SCSI controller and devices, the SCSI2USB presents it as a USB storage device. The programs below appear to expect an ASPI driver so I think the answer is these don't work either. 

Dave

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Mike Ross
> Sent: 03 October 2015 09:21
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> Subject: Re: Writing SCSI 9-Track Mag Tapes from Windows/DOS
> 
> Question: will this kind of hookup work with a USB-SCSI converter? If so, are
> there any specific brands and models known to work? I'm interested in both
> SE & differential, 50 pin & 68 pin.
> 
> Or does it need a traditional Adaptec or similar card?
> 
> Preferably under Linux; Windows possible but deprecated.
> 
> Mike
> 
> On Sat, Oct 3, 2015 at 7:52 PM, John Wilson <wilson at dbit.com> wrote:
> > On Fri, Oct 02, 2015 at 11:28:49PM -0700, Marc Verdiell wrote:
> >>Thanks for your STP2T02.exe  SCSI tape to SIMH program. Ran like a
> >>champ under Win98 DOS, first time. It's the only utility that did work
> >>out of the box to read a tape from my SCSI-1 HP 88780 9-track into a
> >>SIMH file,  out of the 5 or so I tried.  Before I jump to Linux, which
> >>seems to be the more straightforward option, does anyone have the
> >>reverse tool to write a SIMH image file on a 9 Track tape under
> >>Windows/DOS? None of the utilities I found using Windows Tape APIs
> >>could deal with my tape SCSI-1 early interface, they all expect some
> >>basic (SCSI-2?) functions that are not implemented.
> >
> > My "ST.EXE" program (available from
> > http://www.dbit.com/pub/ibmpc/util/
> > including source) runs on real DOS (not Windows) and can write from an
> > E11-format .TAP file (which SIMH uses a garbled version of, but
> > they're interchangeable for *even* record lengths which are 99% of the
> > universe) to a real tape.  It works on my HP 88780, and my Qualstar
> > 1260S and even a DEC TZ30 or TK50Z-GA (which aren't quite full SCSI-1).
> Not picky at all.
> > "st wput foo.tap" should write your image out.  You need a DOS ASPI
> > driver for your SCSI card, and you'll need to use something like "-f
> > scsi5:" on the command line (or set the TAPE environment variable) so
> > ST will know which SCSI ID (etc.) to use.
> >
> > John Wilson
> > D Bit
> 
> 
> 
> --
> 
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