Re: [MiNT] Tape drives and MiNT

[tlang@dialup.becom.net (Torsten Lang)]

Hi Mario,
> 
> I have just got hold of a 2 GB SCSI DAT tape drive which I want to use
> with MiNT. I don't know anything about tape drives. I presume that tar can
> be used with this drive somehow? Are there drivers for various tape drives
> or are they all accessed in the same way meaning that only one driver is
> needed for all tape drives?
> 
> The one I have is a Conner model CTD2004H-S//4320NT (according to the
> label) and manufactured in mid-1995.
> 
> I will look at the Seagate WWW site later and see if they still have any
> info about Conner tape drives. But I would be most interested to hear from
> anyone who knows about using tape drives with MiNT.
> 
you'll need some tape driver. The only software I know of for this purpose is
GEMAR from Steffen Engel. At least the actual version is still quite buggy and
does not seem to be supported any more (at least I didn't see any corrected
version for the last 1-2 years). The parts that causes a lot of trouble are:
1. The driver code itself
2. The GEM interface

The driver is said to set upon the SCSI interface but at least on my machine it
seems not to be the case. So on my PAK'd MEGA GEMAR will hang quite often with
caches activated. The GEM interface complains on not enough memory every time
I'd try to restore a tape.

These severe problems are the reason why I did not register GEMAR nor using it
on a regular basis.

There are at least two ways to use the tape: the xfs mode and the tape mode.
Even though the xfs mode (which is normally used together with the GEM 
interface) is quite unuseable at least the tape mode works if you turn all
caches off.

Regards,
   Torsten