[comp.os.386bsd] BNR/2 derived BSD for PCs FAQ (Part 9 of 10)
Dave Burgess
Archive-name: 386bsd-faq/part9
ection 8. ("Supported" Hardware List)
Disclaimer: This list is NOT a commercial oriented effort. It is not an
attempt to promote brands of computer machinery; it merely
reports "happy" customers. The validity of information supplied
is based solely on the validity of the statements made by the
contributors. If more information is needed on a particular
product please contact the contributor directly via e-mail.
8.0 What hardware is 386BSD known to run on and support!
The problem with this section of the FAQ is that software is
the only reason that every PC card on the planet does not work.
EISA cards are not directly supported; when and if EISA
is directly supported, they will give a significant performance
advantage to EISA bus machines. As it happens, user who desire
more than 16Meg of memory must use either VESA or EISA systems.
Even with an EISA system, many users will not be able to use the
address space above 16Meg unless their system uses only EISA
cards for those devices that need access to DMA. The limitations
are covered in another section of the FAQ.
Many EISA cards operate in an ISA emulation mode. Notably, the
Ultrastore 24F SCSI controller operates in an IDE emulation mode
that allows the card to be used in the current system without
modification. Most EISA cards that operate in ISA mode will
work with 386BSD, NetBSD, or FreeBSD.
Like EISA, MCA is unsupported currently; unlike EISA, it can't
work until it is supported, as it doesn't fall back to ISA
operation. If you want to work on this problem, I'm sure that
many people will appreciate it; you will probably need an ISA or
EISA machine to do the work, however.
On top of all of that, NetBSD (being the 'horizontal' entry in
the *BSD family) supports the following CPUs:
amiga
hp300
1
pc532
sparc
There are more systems being added to this 'tested and stable'
list of computers for which *BSD systems exist.
8.1 Video cards
Card:
Manufacturer:
Price:
Bus:
Comments:
Card: MGA
Manufacturer: ?
Price: $10
Bus: ISA 8/16
Comments: Good if you want only text mode in one window, virtually
unusable in X.
Card: TVGA
Manufacturer: Trident
Price: $30 - $70
Bus: ISA
Comments: Good for multiscreen consoles (pcvt, syscons), but sloooow
for 'X'. Some cards with this chipset have a bug preventing
them from being used with XFree86.
Card: ET3000
Manufacturer: Tseng Labs/Taiwan
Price: $40 - $90
Bus: ISA 8/16
Comments: Good for text and 'X'. A bit slow.
Card: ET4000
Manufacturer: Tseng Labs/Taiwan
Price: $45 - $110
Bus: ISA 8/16, VLB, EISA
Comments: Good for text and 'X'. The fastest 'dumb' (unaccelerated)
card. Avoid Diamond cards, because of their proprietary
clock programming. Diamond is unsupported under XFree.
Card: ET4000/32
Manufacturer: Tseng Labs/Taiwan, Hercules
Price: $65 - $130
Bus: ISA 16, VLB, EISA
Comments: Good for text and 'X'. Some of the early cards have a
hardware bug and don't work well with XFree86. Avoid
Diamond cards, because of their proprietary clock programming.
They are unsupported in XFree86.
Card: S3/801, S3/805
Manufacturer: ?
Price: $100 - $200
Bus: ISA 16, VLB, EISA
Comments: Good for 'X' and text. Popular accelerated video cards.
Available with 1 to 2 MB of RAM, VRAM, or DRAM. If you
want hhigh resolution, get one that uses VRAM.
Card: S3/928
Manufacturer: Miro, ELSA
Price: $250 - $500
Bus: ISA 16, VLB, EISA
Comments: Good for text and 'X'. Popular accelerated video card.
Available with 1 to 4 MB or VRAM or DRAM. For highest
resolutions, get VRAM. Supports resolutions up to
1280x1024@60-70Hz. It is twice as fast as the the S3/80x.
It is about as fast as a Sparc II with GX adapters. Support
for 'low-end' VGA cards is typically poor. Resolutions of
less then 800x600 should be avoided.
8.2 Mice and Trackballs
Mice are not supported, per se, in the Operating System. They
do make the GUI for 'X' a great deal less challenging. The
following mice are supported in 'X' and are therefore supported
by the free BSD systems:
Microsoft mouse
Mouse Systems mouse
Logitech serial mouse
PS/2 bus mouse requires a special driver that is included
in the current source trees.
PS/2 compatible trackballs are also supported, but
there have been problems with the trackball causing
the keyboard to lock up. See the psm driver
information for help on getting this driver to work
correctly with your system.
8.3 Serial Cards
As a general rule, you should avoid a serial card that either
does not use a 16550 UART, or does not have a chip that you
can swap out to install one. The 16550 will prevent many silo
overflows that can occur with high speed modems. Other than
that, virtually all serial cards are supported.
8.3.1 How do I configure multiport cards? Is there a possibility of
using multiport serial boards? How do you configure an AST/4
in the kernel? It looks like the AST driver only supports
4-port cards, but it looks like it would be easy to add support
for 8 ports ... or am I wrong?
From: "Martin Husemann" <mar...@euterpe.owl.de>
All AST 8 port Cards I have seen simply were two AST-4-port on
one board. You would configure them like this:
master ast0 at isa? port 0x1a0 tty irq 5 vector astintr
master ast1 at isa? port 0x2a0 tty irq 7 vector astintr
With that said, the discussion about these cards continues with
how to make older versions of *BSD react correctly to your AST
4 or 8 port cards.
The AST/4 and its clone multiport cards can run on 386BSD using
patchkit 0.2.4 and later, NetBSD, and FreeBSD. The only
problems seem to be that the code in older versions of
sioprobe() and sioattach() in sio.c needs to be hacked to get
it to properly detect the ports and then recognize the type
of UARTs installed (16550As). The code segment that is causing
the problem is included below:
The test in the sio.c driver (in the sioattach() routine) that
is causing it to *think* it is a 8250 is:
scr = inb(iobase + com_scr);
outb(iobase + com_scr, 0xa5);
scr1 = inb(iobase + com_scr);
outb(iobase + com_scr, 0x5a);
scr2 = inb(iobase + com_scr);
outb(iobase + com_scr, scr);
if (scr1 != 0xa5 || scr2 != 0x5a) <--- this is it!
printf(" <8250>");
This test seems to be depending upon the absence of the com_scr
register in the 8250 (iobase+7). Unfortunately, the AST 4-port
card uses this last register of the last UART for interrupt status
(for the 4 UARTs), hence the last port of the 4 fails the test.
The easiest fix is to simply delete this test in your copy of
sio.c (If you *know* that you have no 8250s).
The Bocaboard (BB1008) fails the same way on *all* 8 of its
ports (the +7 address register is replicated for each port
according to the documentation).
There are also some problems with another test in the if
statement:
if ( inb(iobase + com_cfcr) != CFCR_8BITS
|| inb(iobase + com_ier) != IER_ETXRDY
|| inb(iobase + com_mcr) != MCR_IENABLE
|| !isa_irq_pending(dev) <--- this one fails!
|| (inb(iobase + com_iir) & IIR_IMASK) != IIR_TXRDY
|| isa_irq_pending(dev)
|| (inb(iobase + com_iir) & IIR_IMASK) != IIR_NOPEND)
result = 0;
in the sioprobe() routine for a couple of the ports on the
4-port card. Again, the fix is simply to remove that particular
test and everything seems to be okay. These are admittedly
pretty ugly hacks, but when you're in a pinch to the system back
up...
What you need in the config file is:
sio0 -> COM1
sio1 -> COM2
(both should be recognized and work just fine)
sio2 @ 0x1a0 irq 9 flags 0x0501
sio3 @ 0x1a8 irq 9 flags 0x0501
sio4 @ 0x1b0 irq 9 flags 0x0501
sio5 @ 0x1b8 irq 9 flags 0x0501
Other folks have reported that their configuration looks very
similar to this, though they are using irq 5 for the 4-port card.
(above paraphrased from Bob Willcox, et al)
Another configuration for this is when two AST Four Port cards
are actually used in a system. The configuration for that looks
like this:
#device sio0 at isa? port "IO_COM1" tty irq 4 vector siointr
#device sio2 at isa? port "IO_COM3" tty irq 5 vector siointr
device sio1 at isa? port 0x2a0 tty flags 0x0481
device sio2 at isa? port 0x2a8 tty flags 0x0481
device sio3 at isa? port 0x2b0 tty flags 0x0481
device sio4 at isa? port 0x2b8 tty irq 5 flags 0x0481
vector siointr
device sio5 at isa? port 0x1a0 tty flags 0x0881
device sio6 at isa? port 0x1a8 tty flags 0x0881
device sio7 at isa? port 0x1b0 tty flags 0x0881
device sio8 at isa? port 0x1b8 tty irq 4 flags 0x0881
vector siointr
This is one of the areas where FreeBSD and NetBSD have
diverged. The actual semantics of the multiport boards have
changed since this section was originally written (the flags
are either no longer needed or are different in current NetBSD
implementations, for example).
8.3.2 Now that I have FreeBSD 1.0 installed, how do I set up the
serial ports for bi-directional use?
Thanks to Lyn Kennedy (l...@k5qwb.lonestar.org) for the advice about
the cua devices and their minor numbers. He worked out much of this
without docs.
In order to get the comm ports working, I decided to run the sio
driver (heard it is faster and more capable than com). In order to
get it set up, this is what I did.
1. I have four com ports assigned to the addresses and interrupt
lines that are standard for DOS COM1, COM2, COM3, and COM4. I
have the following lines in the file used to specify the config
for the kernel build:
device sio0 at isa? port "IO_COM1" tty irq 4 vector siointr
device sio1 at isa? port "IO_COM2" tty irq 3 vector siointr
device sio2 at isa? port "IO_COM3" tty irq 5 vector siointr
device sio3 at isa? port "IO_COM4" tty irq 9 vector siointr
I also enabled the use of com ports for either call in or call out
by selecting the bi-directional option. The following line in the
config file causes the proper code to be compiled in the driver.
options "COM_BIDIR" #Bidirectional support in sys/isa/sio.c
2. After building the kernel, I made sure the devices were
represented in /dev. MAKEDEV should be used to create the
tty0[0-3] special devices. It will result in entries such as
the following:
0 crw------- 1 root wheel 28, 0 Nov 8 06:28 tty00
0 crw------- 1 root wheel 28, 1 Nov 8 10:09 tty01
0 crw------- 1 root wheel 28, 2 Nov 7 01:13 tty02
0 crw------- 1 root wheel 28, 3 Nov 8 03:02 tty03
Then mknod and chown should be used to create the following four
entries:
0 crw-rw-r-- 1 uucp dialer 28, 128 Nov 8 03:45 cua00
0 crw-rw-r-- 1 uucp dialer 28, 129 Nov 7 18:34 cua01
0 crw-rw-r-- 1 uucp dialer 28, 130 Nov 7 17:29 cua02
0 crw-rw-r-- 1 uucp dialer 28, 131 Nov 8 03:15 cua03
The tty0[0-3] entries are used to receive calls on (with the
bidirectional code, this is signalled because the most significant
bit in the minor number is 0). The cua0[0-3] entries represent the
same ports as the corresponding tty ports, but with the most
significant bit of the minor number turned on. This indicates to
the driver that this port is a call out port.
The reason for the ownership being set to uucp:dialer is because
I have all programs that use dialers (uucico, kermit, tip, etc.)
set to operate as set-uid with uucp as owner. Also all of these
programs are set up as being in group dialer with group dialer
membership being required to execute them.
3. One further step needs to be done to allow proper use of the
ports. In rc.local, the last few lines include the following:
comcontrol /dev/tty00 bidir
comcontrol /dev/tty01 bidir
comcontrol /dev/tty02 bidir
comcontrol /dev/tty03 bidir
4. Now I set up getty to use the incoming ports with the following
entries in /etc/ttys:
tty00 "/usr/libexec/getty std.19200" unknown on secure
tty01 "/usr/libexec/getty std.4800" unknown on secure
tty02 "/usr/libexec/getty std.4800" unknown on secure
tty03 "/usr/libexec/getty std.19200" unknown on secure
5. I set up the port file for uucp, the remote file for tip, and
the .kermrc file for kermit to refer to the cua0[0-3] devices for
call out targets.
6. Note that I have modems on cua/tty 00 and 03. My modems are set
up to adjust the baud rate of the call (in or out) by negotiating
with the other modem in the call. However the modems always retain
the same speed (19,200 Kb) for the rs-232 port. In order to make
the modems use the proper speed, I have to send them an AT sequence
at the desired speed. They will then retain that setting for
incoming calls. So, to do this, I include the following at the
end of my rc.local script:
/usr/local/bin/initcua00
/usr/local/bin/initcua03
and in /usr/local/bin, I have the two scripts like (this is the one
for initcua00):
#!/usr/local/bin/kermit
set modem hayes
set line /dev/cua00
set speed 19200 dial XXXXXXX <----------- it's own number to get busy
quit
8.3.3 What is the difference between baud and bits per second?
It's important to remember that we're transmitting symbols. Does
this apply to digital transmissions ? Yes. A digital message is
simply an ordered sequence of symbols from a discreet source. This
source has an alphabet 'M' of 2 or more symbols, and produces
the symbols at some rate 'r'.
If we allocate a finite amount time alloted to a symbol, and call
that time 'D', we can for once and ever define what baud is. Having
'D', our "signalling rate" is:
r = 1/D (1)
measured in _symbols_per_second_ or baud. For binary transmissions,
we have a bit duration Tb, and our "bit rate" is:
rb = 1/Tb (2)
measured in _bits_per_second_, (bps, or b/s).
Now we note that in the special binary (M=2) case, each bit is
a symbol and thus D=Tb, and by (1) and (2) we have:
r (baud) = rb (bps) (3)
or in English, for *binary* transmissions, we have "the signalling
rate, measured in baud, is the same as the bit rate, which is
measured in bps." For all other transmissions, the signalling
rate (baud) is not equal to the bit rate (bps).
Regards,
-Ade "never wants to see this again" Barkah
8.3.4 How do I get a serial console to work?
This answer provided by Simon Ritter (sri...@novell.co.uk)
I've seen a couple of posts requesting this info, so here it
is. Maybe this should be added to the FAQ's.
Edit the file /etc/conf/pack.d/sysmsg/space.c. At the bottom
of this you will find the following lines:
extern int kdputchar(), kdgetchar();
extern int asyputchar(), asygetchar();
extern int asyputchar2(), asygetchar2();
struct conssw conssw =
{
kdputchar,
0,
kdgetchar
};
Change all occurences of kdputchar and kdgetchar to asycputchar
and asycgetchar. Rebuild your kernel and reboot, connecting a
terminal to the first serial port. Behold, all messages on the
serial port.
(Ed Note... I don't even know if this exists in NetBSD or
FreeBSD, but what the heck, it's an answer :-)... Either way,
the method for this is pretty much the same, and will require
some mucking about on the kernel.)
8.4 Disk Controller Problems
There is no real list of supported wd-driver controllers. The listx
would be far longer than I am willing to type. Suffice it to say
that virtually every know IDE/ESDI/MFM/RLL hard drive controller
available works. There are occasional reports that the driver
for this particular type of disk drive is "broken", but it is hard
to substantiate this. There are a few known "gotchas" with this
particular controller type, but they are fixed as soon as they are
found.
8.4.1 IDE controller problems
The code in the original 386BSD had some serious problems
dealing with the wd controller. In addition, changes to the
controller code which have made improvements in other areas of
the driver have made the wd driver (in 386BSD with the
patchkit) even less trustworthy. The wd driver in NetBSD 0.9
is better but still has to deal with occasional hard drive bus
hangs. The wd driver in the -current code is much more
reliable. The FreeBSD code is also greatly improved, and
likewise does not suffer from these bus hangs.
8.4.2 SCSI controller problems
Every once on a great while, someone will post a problem with a
SCSI controller. Almost all of these are attributed to either
a) bad cables (or out of spec cables), b) bad termination, or
c) incorrect irq/drq setup. Here is an excerpt of a message
that provides some insight into one man's problems with the
Adaptec controller, and one with the BusLogic 445.
From: wi...@rwwa.com (Robert Withrow)
Problem: When the bus hangs, all devices have their access
lights off, the AHA his its light on.
If anyone cares:
Being in a hurry, I made several changes and the problem went
away. Normally, I would change one thing at a time, but, like I
said, I was in a hurry. Below, I list the changes I made:
1) I replaced the AHA with an older one I keep as a spare.
2) I *inserted* the the ``synchronous negotiation'' jumper in
the aha.
3) I removed the terminator power jumper from two of the hard
drives.
4) I removed and reinserted all of connectors into all of the
drives.
If I had to guess, I bet #2 was the thing that fixed the
problem. Perhaps this should be a FAQ answer? (Assuming this is
a requirement)...
The system has compiled X11 three times as well as done all
sorts of other things including all of the drives (cdrom, disk,
and tape) for three days now without a single hang.
Robert Withrow, Tel: +1 617 598 4480, Fax: +1 617 598 4430
R.W. Withrow Associates, 319 Lynnway, Lynn MA 01901 USA
Net: wi...@rwwa.COM
w...@ebh.eb.ele.tue.nl (Willem Jan Withagen) writes:
=> => The BT kernel requires the controller to be configured
=> => for IRQ 12. That is a strange default. The default for
=> => the BT445S is 11, the same as for the 1542. You probably
=> => just need to reconfigure the controller.
=>
=> So I redid the switches and the BT kernel recognises it on
=> int 12. Either with or without EISA DMA (switch 2-10)
=>
=> it no longer generates the strayintr 7.
=> But it still doesn't boot after the message
=> 'changing root device to fd0d'
=>
=> So what's going on here. Is there anyway to find out more?
=> Or should I go to one of the FreeBSD lists and discuss it there?
I was browsing thru the hardware manual of the BT 445S and there
it was on the next page :-( I was just misguided by the nice
switches on the card edge.
To set the interrupts not only the dip-switches need to be changed.
More important is the actual and physical connection of intr 12 to
the ISA bus connector.
After taking the board out, and really connecting intr 12, the
system booted the BT kernel without a glitch. I'm now compiling a
new kernel with all our options set as we'd like them to be.
The current config:
16 Mb
BT 445S with intr 12 and switch 2-10 in default state,
giving dma on channel 5.
Things I'm going to test:
toggling the 2-10 switch
adding 16 MB more.
8.5 SCSI Controllers
The list of "supported" hard drive controllers is very short.
Basically, it is any hard drive controller that emulates a
standard IDE/ESDI/MFM controller and a few SCSI controllers.
The short list is included below:
These boot with the kcaha floppy:
Adaptec 1522 ISA SCSI Experimental
AIC-6260 based ISA SCSI
AIC-6360 based ISA SCSI
Adaptec 1540[ABC] ISA SCSI No Floppy
Adaptec 1542[ABC] ISA SCSI
Adaptec 174x EISA SCSI
Adaptec 294x ???? SCSI Not supported
Ultrastore 14F ISA SCSI
Ultrastore 24F EISA SCSI
Ultrastore 34F VLB SCSI
Buslogic BT542 ISA SCSI
Buslogic BT545 ISA SCSI (Old ones only)
Buslogic BT946C PCI SCSI
NCR 53C810 based PCI SCSI
These boot with the kcbt floppy:
Buslogic BT742A EISA SCSI
Buslogic BT747A EISA SCSI (modified 742 driver)
Buslogic BT445S VLB SCSI
Note that the Ultrastore 24F is supported with an experimental
driver or in IDE emulation mode only. Any controller that
purports to be a clone of one of the cards listed above will
usually work as well.
The Adaptex 294x cards are a particular problem. They are based
on the AIC7770 chipset, for which there is an experimental
driver. In addition, several people have reported very limited
success getting the Linux driver top work. This is a continuing
project that is being undertaken without the support of Adaptec.
The 'based' cards above are special in that many controllers use
these controller chips as the basis for their implementation.
The AIC-6260 is the chip set in the Adaptec 1522 series
controllers, and the AIC-6360 is the chipset used in the
Soundblaster SCSI controller. There are several PCI controllers
that are using the NCR chipset.
In addition, there is a special note for Buslogic card users.
The card should be configured to use ioaddr 0x330 and IRQ 12.
There are two places the IRQ needs to be set. The first is a
bank of dip switches, and te next is a jumper. See your hard
drive controller documentation for the exact settings.
Once you've got the controller on the right settings. As it
says in the README.INSTALL file, after all:
BT742 SCSI Cntlr. 0x330 12 [kcopy-bt-floppy]
So I can only conclude that you've probably not configured the
card for EISA DMA! From the /usr/src/KNOWNBUGS file:
/sys/1/isa/bt742a.c
The Bt445S and Bt747 controllers can cause problems when
ISA DMA is selected as an option. With the EISA controller
the remedy is easy - simply turn it off using your EISA
configuration utility. With the Bt445S, which is a VLB
card, you must switch the undocumented "SW10" on "SB2" to
the off position. Also note that certain revisions of the
Buslogic board (Revision C or earlier, firmware revision
<3.37) will cause DATA CORRUPTION with systems containing
more than 16MB of memory. If you find this to be the case,
temporarily remove your extra memory and contact Buslogic
for an upgrade!
The BT946C PCI card works flawlessly. The only thing that needs
to be done to it is to ensure that the the two jumpers that
control how and if to autoconfig are removed. This allows the
system to autoconfigure everything in the card. The best thing
to do is simply set the card to use the "Autoconfig to default"
option.
8.6 Network Cards
Common misconception number 1: Why does BSD still support such
a small selection of network cards?
Depends on what you mean by `small'. Here is the 'short list'.
3c501 isa if_el (kim...@cs.umass.edu)
3c503 isa if_el (mycroft)
3C507 isa if_el (mycroft)
3c509 isa if_ep bnc/aui/utp. (tdr)
3c579 eisa if_ep (tdr)
WD 8390-based cards isa if_ed (mycroft)
SMC 8390-based cards isa if_ed (mycroft)
NE1000, NE2000 isa if_ed (mycroft)
NE2100/BICC Isolan/DEPCA isa if_le (mycroft)
AT&T StarLAN (82586-based cards) (mycroft)
These are all in NetBSD, and FreeBSD (by inference)
Common question number 2: I have a 3Com 3c509 - is it supported?
The 3C509 works well under NetBSD-current, and has been clocked
at full ethernet speed. To use the UTP connection, you will need
to specify the link0 and link1 options in the ifconfig command.
-link0 disable AUI/UTP. enable BNC.
link0 disable BNC. enable AUI.
link1 if the card has a UTP connector, and link0 is
set too, then you get the UTP port.
8.7 Printers
In the original 386bsd system, there were problem with the
interrupt driven parallel printer driver. These problems were
solved by the use of a work around called the interruptless
printer driver (worked on the theory that once it knew how your
printer reacted to printing it could configure itself to your
printer).
This code has also been deprecated through the use of a new
printer driver in the {Free,Net}BSD systems that use the same
source code for either 'interrupt' or 'polled' operation. The
closest thing to a 'common' question about printers involves
questions about CR+LF emulation on some laser printers and some
questions about some of the filters that 'lpd' talks about, but
do not seem to be avaiable normally.
The first is easy. Set up your printer so that it uses the
'LF' code as its CR+LF (End of line) character. If you use
your machine for operations in more than one OS (like some of
us that HAVE to use DOS :-( ) then you can include a control
sequence in the 'ff' control in your /etc/printcap file.
Here is an example printcap to show you how simple it is:
lp|ljgpc_deskjet|HP DeskJet Plus: :lp=/dev/lpt0:mx#0: :sd=/var/spool/ljgpc_deskjet:lf=/var/log/lpd-errs: :ff=\033E\033&k2G:fo:sh:tr=\033E:
8.8 TAPE Drives
Editor's note:
This tapedrive list is maintained by the original authors. If you
have additions, corrections, changes, or deletions, please be sure
to contact the folks listed in the next paragraph.
SCSI news:
jul...@tfs.com writes:
>FreeBSD 1.1 had a rewritten SCSI system.
>
>In fact the method of using the tape modes was almost completely
>rewritten.
>
>If you are a user of tapes, and have had experience with the new method
>(using a control device), please let me know what you think about the
>new system. I'm particularly interested in hearing from anyone that has
>used the control device from the rc files to set up the system default
>modes for their device on bootup (that's what it was designed for).
>
>if you have used the tapes in 386BSD or freeBSD-1.0
>and didn't notice that they have changed for 1.1,
>then see the man pages st(4) st(1) scsi(1) scsi(4)
and also...
>as for NetBSD..
>they have integrated the new code into the -current tree
>and it will probably be in the next 'release'
*** Administrivia:
If anyone else aspires to the position of "co-editor of the tape FAQ",
please send me mail. Until then, I'll use the "Royal We" in the tape
FAQ so I don't have to change all the text. I'd especially like to hear
from people who are using something other than SCSI tape drives, since I
know almost nothing about non-SCSI tapes, and this is reflected in the
FAQ.
The tape FAQ will be sent out bimonthly, rather than monthly.
- Andrew Jr.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
These tape drives have been reported as working (or not working)
on 386BSD, NetBSD or FreeBSD, either in articles on USENET or in
response to previous postings. If you know any more details, want
to point out errors, know another tape drive works (or doesn't),
have any suggestions for additions/changes to the FAQ, or anything
else useful, please send your reports to:
and...@noware.ocunix.on.ca (Andrew Cornwall)
PLEASE HELP TO UPDATE THIS LIST BY PROVIDING COMMENTS AND NEW
INFO. IN RETURN, WE WILL POST UPDATES AND TRY TO MAKE THE LIST
AVAILABLE TO ANYONE INTERESTED.
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:
This list is not guaranteed to be 100% correct.
We don't know much about tape drives as yet, so
we are only collating information provided by others.
By getting feedback on this list, we hope to improve
it into an FAQ.
EVEN MORE IMPORTANT THANK-YOU:
Thanks to everyone who's contributed to this list. Without
your help, it wouldn't exist!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Changes to:
Archive 2525-S
Wangtek 5150ES
Wangtek 5525ES
Additions:
-none-
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Format of each entry is as follows:
Name: {name of the device; if you're reporting, please be as
specific as possible}
Capacity: {Maximum size of the device}
Approx Cost: {Roughly what you paid}
Interface: {How it talks to the machine - SCSI, PC bus, etc}
Controllers: {What controller you're using - Adaptec 1542B, etc}
Informant: {Who says it works}
Comments: {Anything good or bad you feel like saying}
*** Please state in the Comments field which operating system you
*** are using and which version.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
MANUFACTURER CONTACTS:
Archive is a Maynard company bought by Conner
Sales: +1 714 641 0279
Technical: +1 800 227 6296
[informant: mq...@qcunix.acc.qc.edu (KARAGEORGIOU ANGELOS)]
Tandberg
Technical? +1 805 495 8384
[informant: rae...@uk.ac.soton.ecs.cygnus.com (Ken Raeburn)]
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
COMPATIBLE TAPE DRIVES:
Name: Archive ???
Capacity: 60MB
Approx Cost:
Interface: QIC02/24
Controllers: Archive SC499
Informant: stark!ge...@newsserv.cs.sunysb.edu (Gene Stark)
Comments: I have been using the wt driver with an SC499
controller for a few months. I am sort of happy
with the driver. It streams the tape under dump
and restore, as long as there is not much else
going on in the system. I haven't been able to
get much streaming with tar. I tried using dd
with large block sizes and caused at least one
system crash, so I don't do that at the moment.
The error recovery of the driver is not very good.
If you try to read at the wrong density, you have
to execute a successful rewind or control command
before you can then read at the correct density.
Name: Archive 2060
Capacity: 60MB
Approx Cost: US$200
Interface: SCSI
Controllers: Adaptec 1542b, Adaptec 1742a
Informant: dun...@zycad.com
Comments: no observed problems when used with julian's drivers.
works fine with 1542b/1742a
Name: Archive 2150
Capacity: 250Mb
Approx cost: US$350-500
Interface: SCSI
Controllers: Adaptec 1542b, Adaptec 1742a
Informant: e...@slustl.slu.edu (Eric J. Haug)
adme...@cip.e-technik.uni-erlangen.de (me 8-))
dun...@zycad.com
jfi...@sophia.smith.edu
Comments: works well with both the driver in the distribution
kernel and julians' SCSI drivers. [ejh]
nice device!!!, works like a charm, tar w/ original
scsi-driver plus variable block length patch, under DOS:
GTAR, ASPIBIN (ASPI-TAR), PCTOOLS 8.0, COREL-SCSI
works fine with julian's drivers and 1542b/1742a
[admerlev/duncan]
and with Adaptec 1542C + Julian's SCSI drivers [jfieber]
S version (SCSI?) runs under FreeBSD:Com...@Salem.GE.COM
2150S also known as Viper 150
Name: Archive 2150L
Capacity: 150 Mb, 120 Mb
Interface: QIC-02
Controllers: Archive Viper SC402
Informant: v...@kiae.su (Serge Vakulenko)
Comments: Works well, with new wt driver (by me and Sergey Ryzhkov).
Supports 150Mb and 120 Mb formats on write and 150Mb, 120Mb
and 60Mb formats on read. It's possible to use mt command
to rewind the tape, seek file forward etc.
It's not a problem in the SCSI code. It's a firmware
bug in (at least) the Archive Viper 150. Data can be
appended only if the drive is ``totally sure'' that
the tape is at end of recorded medium. This could be
achieved by issuing a `space to end of recorded
medium' command. Unfortunately, the recent version of
Julian's SCSI driver doesn't support this. (Future
versions might do.)
As a workaround, it's possible to ``mt fsf'' after the
last tape file, then issue another ``mt fsf'', which
will result in an IO error (SCSI blank check, `no data
found' appears on console), that should be ignored.
At this point, the tape could be written to!
- joerg_...@tcd-dresden.de
Name: Archive 2525-S (Firmware Rev. 25462-007 - seems to be important [nbladt])
Capacity: QIC-24, QIC-120, QIC-150, QIC-525
Approx Cost: ca. 1000,- DM (about US$ 500)
Interface: SCSI-1
Controllers: Adaptec 1542B, Adaptec 1542C, Adaptec 1742A, Adaptec 1742B
Informant: nbl...@autelca.ascom.ch (Norbert Bladt)
h...@hcshh.hcs.de (Hellmuth Michaelis)
loodvrij%c...@fredbox.cts.com (Bruce J. Keeler)
mus...@com.netcom (Irving Moy)
r...@midnight.MV.COM (Roger M. Levasseur)
and...@knobel.knirsch.de (Andreas Klemm)
Comments: In contrary to what my dealer told me, it can read and WRITE
QIC-150 tapes. Didn't have a chance to try QIC-120, or QIC-60,
etc. yet.
I am using 386bsd-0.1 (still with the first patchkit and
all updates from Julian for his fabulous SCSI-driver kit)
Sorry, no experience with the original driver because
that driver doesn't work with the 1742A. [nbladt]
Worked with Julian's driver out of the box. [hm]
Since putting in Julian's drivers, with Dave Tweten's mods,
it seems to work just fine. [loodvrij]
The drive docs specify that it can r/w QIC-120, 150, and 525.
It can read QIC-24 but not write it. I have read QIC-24
tapes with it. This is with FreeBSD 1.0.2 +
Adaptec-1542C [rml]
A few days ago I couldn't install netbsd-09
because I couldn't read the distribution from
tape. That was the reason for me ro try
FreeBSD-1.0.2 (which worked)
Model: VIPER 2525 25462 Rev: -007 [andreas]
Name: Archive 5945C drive
Capacity: 45MB used with wr0b device on a 450ft tape
Approx Cost: 0 (from a scrapped Apollo 3000)
Interface: QIC-02
Controllers: Archive SC400S
Informant: Jens Tingleff, Imperial College, London SW7 2BT,
jens...@ic.ac.uk
Comments: The `wt' driver from FreeBSD-1.0R works just fine. The
only change to the controller hardware was to rejumper
the I/O address selection (jumper pad going A9 A8 ..
A3) to locate the controller at 0x300.
Reads tapes written on a SUN3 shoebox. Tapes written
to rwt0b device do *not* read on the SUN. Multiple tar
archjives (using device nrwt0b) works just fine.
Doesn't quite stream with tar, and I'm not sure what
the max speed is, I'm seing 2.5 MB/Min write speed
using `tar -b 512', I have seen 4MB/Min read when
using `dd'.
[The TAR program archived as TAR313US.ZIP at
garbo.uwasa.fi works fine under DOS with this
hardware, reading tapes written on both FreeBSD and on
a SUN3 shoebox]
Name: ARCHIVE Python 25501 4mm DAT
Capacity: >1 Gb
Approx Cost: ~US$1100
Interface: SCSI 2
Controllers: Adaptec 1542B, 1742
Informant: Ri...@rice.edu
Comments: It works great so far, but I haven't figured out how
to turn on the hardware compression. Rich
Name: Cipher Model 540
Capacity: 45M/60M (probably/hopefully)
Approx Cost: Loaned to me in `vintage appearance' (Much dust) - No idea !
Interface: SCSI 1
Controllers: Adaptec 1542B
Informant: Julian Stacey <sta...@guug.de>
Comments: Shows promise, Cant yet call it truly usefull though:
The Good Bit:
I have seen it stream constantly on 386bsd.
The Bad Bit:
I can't use it as a usefull drive because it keeps
dropping out with errors.
The fault does not lie in the media, & most probably
not with external power supply or scsi cable -
I'm working on it.
Name: CIPHER MicroStreamer F880 (1600bpi, 9 track PERTEC interface)
Capacity: ???
Approx Cost: $5000 for the drive in 1985
$1000 for protocol Converter 1992
Interface: SCSI
Controllers: Adaptec AHA-1542A to NCR ADP-53 to tape drive
Informant: mi...@scrooge.uoregon.edu (Mike Hoffman)
Comments: It is FAST, reads tape about the same speed as rewind.
The SCSI controller runs the 9 track drive thru the
converter and an Archive 2060S 60mb Cartridge tape
drive directly. After putting in the current
patches and reading the PERTEC Specs it was almost
"plug and play". The ADP-53 is a protocol converter
from/to SCSI/PERTEC, purchased from Laguna Data
Systems (see Byte Magazine).
Problems:
mt does not seem to be of much use. Forward spacing
the 9 track tape is an iffy job (skipping the label
on a labeled tape). dd now does this (skip=1).
I always get the error 'cannot prevent/allow'. This
is not a big deal (prevent or allow removal of
tape).
dd does not handle cr/lf at all well. Could be all
the protocol conversions or gnu dd just doesn't do
it. All files are read in as one line(no CR Lf
etc). The blocking and conversion options have no
effect on line length. Conversion from EBCDIC to
ASCII works fine. A small program to break up the
file solves the long line problem.
Name: Cipher ST-150F
Capacity: 150Mb
Approx cost: US$300 (incl. interface)
Interface: QIC-02
Controllers: Cipher
Informant: hid...@isl.rdc.toshiba.co.jp (YOSHIDA Hideki)
Comments: works well with blocksize <= 4b
Name: Cipher ST150-S
Capacity: QIC-24(read only), QIC-120, QIC-150
Approx Cost: 1300,- DM (long ago ..)
Interface: SCSI (better SCSI-I or CCS)
Controllers: Adaptec 1542B, 1742
Informant: Hellmuth Michaelis (h...@hcshh.hcs.de)
Comments: This drive responds with empty strings if asked for
for it's vendors name and model.
It has a strange format of the mode sense/set command
blocks.
By default, it reports a soft error back to the host
which makes it a bit hard to work with.
Problems solved with next release of Julian Elischer's
enhanced SCSI driver (currently beta, July '93).
oy...@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au reports an upgrade
which involves a new ROM and cutting some traces.
The drive responds: CIPHER : Model ST150S2 Rev: 2.0
ANSI SCSI rev: 01 when asked for it's vendors names
and model.
Name: COMTEK Gigatape 1200 4mm external DAT
Capacity: 1.2 Gb
Approx Cost: US$800
Interface: SCSI 1
Controllers: Adaptec 1542B
Informant: ri...@id.slip.bcm.tmc.edu (Rich Murphey)
Comments: You can remove the COMTEK drive because I gave up on it:
the vendor offered to upgrade me to a different drive,
the Archive Python 25501 4mm DAT.
Name: Conner C250MQT
Capacity: 250 MB compressed, 125 not
Approx Cost: approx $200
Interface: Uses floppy disk controller on PC.
Controller: ?
Informant: t...@ruth.ece.psu.edu (Tom Weldon)
Comments: Maybe it works, but i couldnt get it to talk to 386BSD
with GENERICISA kernel.
Name: DEC TZ30
Capacity: 96 MB (uses 3M CompacTape cartridges)
Approx cost:
Interface: SCSI
Controllers: Adaptec 154xB
Informant: dav...@otto.bf.rmit.oz.au (David Burren) May 1993
Comments: Works with Julian's SCSI drivers. Console reports "cannot
prevent/allow" but this is not a problem.
This is the native-SCSI half-height version of DEC's
TK50Z drive.
Name: DEC TZ857
Capacity: 18.2 GB (stacker unit with seven 2.6 GB CompacTape
III tapes)
Approx cost: lots
Interface: SCSI
Controllers: Adaptec 154xB
Informant: dav...@otto.bf.rmit.oz.au (David Burren) May 1993
Comments: Works with Julian's SCSI drivers. As with the TZ30,
"cannot prevent/allow" is reported but operation
continues.
As 386bsd has no "mt online" yet, cartridge loading is
done manually, but unloading/advancing is done through
"mt offline" as under Ultrix.
I don't really use this drive, but I had access to it
for a day and tried it out...
Name: Exabyte 8200 8mm
Capacity: 2.2 GB
Approx cost:
Interface: SCSI
Controllers: Adaptec 154xB
Informant: dav...@otto.bf.rmit.oz.au (David Burren) May 1993
to...@flex.eng.mcmaster.ca (Todd Pfaff) Nov 1993
Comments: Works perfectly with Julian's SCSI drivers.
I use it all the time for my system dumps and for
exchanging files with other machines.
Works great with FreeBSD-1.0-RELEASE although
'mt -status' doesn't work properly.
Name: Hewlett-Packard HP35480A DAT drive
Capacity: 4 GB
Approx Cost: $1400
Interface: SCSI
Controllers: Adaptec 1542B
Informant: ka...@neosoft.com
Comments: Great drive, flawless performance. Requires
variable length tapedrive patches which should be
in the patchkit, but I haven't checked. (They were
submitted around November of '92)
Name: Sankyo ST525
Capacity: 525 Mbyte
Approx Cost: 6000 SEK (US$850), NZ$1400 (internal, Jan94)
Interface: SCSI (SCSI-2)
Controllers: Adaptec 1542B
Informant: jo...@carmen.volvo.se (Jonas Lagerblad)
ni...@nz.co.optimation (Nick Gridley)
Comments: everything works allright except for one crash
The SCSI bus seemed hang after running
"dump 0uf - /dev/rsd0a | gzip --best |
dd of=/dev/rst0 bs=64k"
for approx 1 hour. If I skip the compression
everything works perfectly. (I am using Julian's
SCSI driver) 386BSD-0.1 patchkit 0.2 patches 0-110. [jonas]
I have no problems with this drive and FreeBSD
(GAMMA,EPSILON,1.0) I have a BusTek 542B controller but
no other SCSI devices (yet..). Further, I mix 150 &
525 tapes, and read the occasional 60m. [nickg]
Name: Sony SDT-1000 DAT
Capacity: 2 GB on a 90 meter tape
Approx. Cost: about $600 now, $3500 when purchased 3 yrs ago
Interface: SCSI (SCSI-2 also)
Controllers: Adaptec 1542B
Informant: st...@molly.dny.rockwell.com
Comments: I have used it under 386BSD 0.1 and NetBSD 0.8.
Under 386BSD, it didn't support all of the ioctl functions,
but works without a hitch under NetBSD. I use it to do tar
data backups and restores as well as interchanging data
with an H-P 9000/755 using the HPUX tar command.
Name: Tandberg 3600 series
Capacity:
Approx cost:
Interface:
Controllers:
Informant: fred...@asiago.cs.wisc.edu (Lars Fredriksen),
rae...@uk.ac.soton.ecs.cygnus.com (Ken Raeburn)
Comments: Tandberg SCSI driver work has been pulled into Julian's
SCSI driver.
So far I have not had any problems reading 30/60/150/250 Mb
tapes, similarly no problems writing 150/250 Mb
tapes.[fredriks]
People can get firmware changes from Tandberg for the 3600
and later drives which will make the drive act much like an
Archive Viper 150MB drive (including identifying itself as
such). This is what Tandberg does for people who want to
use the drives with Sun workstations.
With this replacement firmware, I was able to read and write
tapes just fine with mostly stock NetBSD 0.9 (no
scsi-related changes) and Linux, with an Adaptec 1542B
controller.
Paul Rinaldi at Tandberg's east-coast office told me that
people wanting to get this done should contact Bob Russell
their factory at 805-495-8384 and ask for part # 966039,
firmware revision B07:43. The cost is about $40. They
recommend you send in your drive to get the replacement done
by the factory, but you can probably get them to send you
the replacement firmware, if you're into hacking hardware.
> As I understood it, this firmware is intended for later-model tape
> drives than the 3600, but Paul and I tried it, and I've had no
> problems yet.
Name: Tandberg 3660
Capacity: 250Mb
Approx cost:
Interface:
Controllers:
Informant: Per Anders Olausson <p...@cd.chalmers.se>
meid...@isar.de(Thomas Meidinger)
Comments: DC6250, DC6150 (not tested) and DC600A.
Reads and writes DC-6120 as well. [pao]
Name: Tandberg TDC-3800 5.25" SCSI-1 325MB TBU
Capacity: up to 520Mb (depending on media) uncompressed
Approx cost: Didn't buy it new.
Interface: SCSI-1
Controllers: AHA1542B
Informant: v...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (VaX#n8)
Comments: Would not work with base 386bsd-0.1 kernel.
After applying patch kit, everything worked fine.
Only tested reads on 250MB, reads and writes on 325MB,
and reads and writes on 525MB. Works great.
Also fine under NetBSD-0.9. Even got "aspitar" from
wuarchive to read tars from DOS. Don't mix 525 and 325MB
tapes though, causes heads to wear out fast. Coexists with
SCSI-2 drives just fine. Wouldn't trade it for anything but a
SCSI DAT or 8mm.Even then, I would have to think about it.
Name: Tandberg 3820 5 1/4" HH internal QIC 525 SCSI streamer
Capacity: up to 520Mb (depending on media) uncompressed
Approx cost: (I bought mine two years ago--it wasn't cheap :-)
Interface: SCSI-1/2
Controllers: AHA1542B, 1742A, DTC3290
Informant: t...@first.gmd.de (Thomas M. Hoberg)
sta...@guug.de (Julian Stacey)
to...@gator.bocaraton.ibm.com (Thomas Bagli)
Comments: Works well with both the driver in the distribution kernel
and julians' SCSI drivers. Reads all QIC media (tested
QIC 40/60/120/150/525) Writes QIC 120/150/250/320/525
(120/150/525 tested) Includes a 256k buffer. 2 rw
speeds: 83k/s for QIC<320, 200k/sec for 320+
Occasionally the file system can't keep up at
200k/sec on backups (small files), somewhat more often
on restores. The drive can directly seek to any block
on the tape, so in theory at least with the
appropriate device drive you could mount a file system
on it (you better keep fragmentation low :-) As you
can guess, I am EXTREMELY happy with it.
[tmh]
The Good Bit:
It streams constantly without error (~40mins for 525M
write @ 60K blocking). Tape drive shares bus with 3
SCSI-2 Seagate drives also OK with a SCSI-1 Micropolis 1684-7.
The Bad Bit:
We (several us of using these TDC3820s on different hardware)
have undergone an eerom + eprom autodensity upgrade to allow
150M writes (previously could only read 150M tapes +r&w 525M);
this known as Revision 04908, Done 92 08 28.
There is some kind of block size problem that prevents
us reliably exchanging 525M tapes, 150M seems OK,
problem is tape hardware oriented I believe,
not 386BSD specific.
Problem pre-existed the 150M write capability upgrade.
A friend with same 386bsd + TDC3820 + 1542A can't read my tapes,
neither can a PCS (M68000 based) computer with a TDC3820
[stacey]
We paid DM1000 (~$625) in early 1991. This was a very
special price, and I estimate that the actual cost would be
(very) approximately 50% more (~$950).
I've used it with an Adaptec 1742A, a DTC3290 (caching 1542B
emulation), and a Mylex ?376? (caching, but only under DOS)
SCSI controllers. It doesn't just stream, it screams. I've
never seen a streamer that just streams without a pause,
rewind or such. This one does (not to say that the Tandberg
is the sole reason for this).
[tomb]
Name: WangDAT 3200
Capacity: 2Gb (up to 8Gb w/compression) on a 90 meter tape
Approx cost: US$1200-$1300 approx
Interface: SCSI
Controllers:
Informant: con...@talisman.kaleida.com (J.T. Conklin)
c...@postgres.Berkeley.edu
Comments: Works great with Julian's SCSI drivers and an Adaptec 1742...
(I use it to do my dumps, and I've actually checked and made
sure the restores work... 8-) [cgd]
Name: Wangtek 5099EK
Capacity: 60M
Approx cost:
Interface: PC/QIC-36
Controllers:
Informant: rob...@robkaos.GUN.de (Robert Schien)
Comments: The wt.c driver, which is delivered with FreeBSD-EPSILON,
does not work with my Wangtek 5099EK (60 MB) tape drive.
This drive has a PC/QIC-36 interface and it worked fine with
ESIX 5.3.2D (For testing I tried SCO Xenix and ISC 2.2.1 and
it worked with these OSs, too). With the driver in
386bsd-0.1, I could read tapes, but not write. With the
"improved" driver, I could neither read nor write (all minor
devices tried). The solution was a driver from someone in
Sweden (his name is Mikael Hybsch (sp?)), which worked for
me already with 386bsd-0.1.
Name: Wangtek 5099EN
Capacity:
Approx cost:
Interface:
Controllers:
Informant: Original 386bsd.FAQ
Comments:
Name: Wangtek 5099SC24, this is a QIC drive (same mechanical drive
as 5099EN24) with a QIC24 to SCSI board by wangtek full height
Capacity: 60Mb w/DC600A, 100Mb w/DC6250
Approx cost: Used as is drives US$25.00/each, refurbs ~US$100.00
Interface: SCSI
Controllers: Adaptec 1542B
Informant: rgr...@agora.rain.com
Comments: works well with both the driver in the distribution
kernel and julians' SCSI drivers. Very old full height
driver readily availiable in the surplus market. I know
where there are 50 or so of these for $25.00/each as is,
they are pulls from old workstations.
Name: Wangtek 5150EQ
Capacity: 250MB (QIC-150)
Approx cost: 400 UK pounds including software for DOS
Interface: QIC-02
Controllers: Wangtek QIC-02 included
Informant: k...@doc.ic.ac.uk (K J Dryllerakis)
Comments: Works with stock driver. Very very slow but reliable. Funny,
it only seems to work if you use /dev/wt0 instead of /dev/rwt0.
New driver in beta version by mi...@dynas.se (Mikael Hybsch).
Name: Wangtek 5150ES
Capacity: 250Mb
Approx cost: $500 in Germany
Interface: SCSI-1
Controllers: Adaptec 1542B, Adaptec 1542CF
Informant: be...@max.IN-Berlin.DE (Stefan Behrens)
dun...@zycad.com (Don)
Comments: [With original 0.1 SCSI ...] it streams constantly
and works without any errors. Works with original
as.c driver and with newer drivers from Julian
[eg in patchkit 0.2.4]. [berry]
Does not work with the 1742a and 386bsd!!!!!
SCSI driver compatibility problems. [duncan, ~Jun'93]
NOTE: with the latest patchkit Stefan Behrens [berry]
has reported that Julian's SCSI now works with it.
No update yet on 1742A behaviour.
works without any problems on any version of FreeBSD
with the Adaptec 1542B and the 1542CF (the CF requires
an up to date version of the SCSI driver). Used to work
on 386bsd with newer drivers from Julian. I've also used
the drive with Linux, Solaris2.1/x86 and DOS (Adaptecs
ASPI and GNU tar) with success. [berry]
Name: Wangtek 5525ES
Capacity: 525M
Approx cost: US$600, CDN$1000
Interface: Adaptec 1542B, Adaptec 1742
Controllers: SCSI-1
Informant: b...@eco.twg.com (Brian Yasaki)
and...@noware.ocunix.on.ca (Andrew Cornwall)
Jeffrey Lang <jl...@COM.NeoSoft.sugar>
Comments: Writes QIC120, 150, 250, 525. Reads QIC24 as well
(untested). Works with the distribution kernel.
jl...@neosoft.com reports problems with the "REV1"
drive.
In theory a jumper on JP2 will select SCSI-2 instead
of SCSI-1, but I stuck a jumper there and still boot
up as SCSI-1 on NetBSD 0.9 [andrew]
Name: Wangtek 6200-HS
Capacity: 2GB
Approx cost: $600 (refurbished)
Interface: SCSI (SCSI II if controller supports)
Controllers: Adaptec 154x, 1742, ...
Informant: bri...@logrus.rain.com (Brian Smith)
Comments: Averages 150 KBytes/sec throughput uncompressed, tested
with FreeBSD 1.02 and Adaptec 1542B.
Name: Wangtek QT60 (aka Tecmar QT60)
Capacity: 60M
Approx cost:
Interface: QIC 02
Informant: tco...@pacific.urbana.mcd.mot.com (Tim Combs)
Comments: It works although does not stream under 386BSD 0.1
END OF COMPATIBLE TAPE DRIVE LIST
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
8.9 QIC-40/80 tape drives
Steve Gerakines has released a series of patches for FreeBSD that
allow the use of the QIC-40/80 tape drives through the floppy
controller. Get them from ftp.gte.com:/pub/ft/dist0.3/dist0.3.tgz
or a similar mirror site, if there are any. Archie will be able
to tell you for certain.
I have been playing with Steve's patches for FreeBSD to get
them hooked into NetBSD for the past year. The best I
have ever been able to get is a kernel that doesn't recognize
any of my floppy drives.
8.10 CD-ROMs
The Sony Multispin drives work well for Charles Hannum using NetBSD
and an SCSI controller.
The Sony CDU 561 works well, as do the Toshiba 401 and 4101. The
4101 is a double speed SCSI-2 device and allows 'grabbing' of
music tracks.
Many folks have announced that they had problems with Mitsumi
CD-ROM drives. It seems that there are nearly as many releases
of the firmware as there were drives sold. Many of the firmware
versions were incompatible with each other. A generic Mitsumi
driver will be a hard act to accomplish, if it is possible at all.
There are Mitsumi CD-ROM drivers for NetBSD and FreeBSD. They are
available in the -current source tree of each, and should be
available in the next general release of both systems. If your
CD-ROM is not recognized by the kernel, and uses a Mitsumi
controller, you will need to make changes to the mcd.c source
file to change the behaviour of the first getreply() function.
Instead of exitting immediately, the check for whether the
getreply was successful should be commented out and assumed to
be correct. While this is a brute force method (it may find a
CD-ROM that isn't even there) it will help many Mitsumi
controllers probe correctly. The brute force method is
included below:
The answer is to replace the probe code which was broken with
an old version. The old version will detect mcd0 even if it
isn't there :-) Doesn't matter! Warren Toomey (w...@cs.adfa.oz.au)
int mcd_probe(struct isa_device *dev)
{
int port = dev->id_iobase;
int unit = dev->id_unit;
int st;
mcd_data[unit].flags = MCDPROBING;
#ifdef NOTDEF
mcd_data[unit].config = irqs[dev->id_irq]
;
#else
mcd_data[unit].config = 0;
#endif
outb(port+mcd_reset, MCD_CMDRESET);
mcd_delay(300000);
st = mcd_getstat(unit,1);
mcd_data[unit].flags = 0;
return (st<0) ? 0 : 4;
}
--
TSgt Dave Burgess | Dave Burgess
NCOIC, USSTRATCOM/J6844 | *BSD FAQ Maintainer
Offutt AFB, NE | Bur...@s069.infonet.net