QIC tape blues

[Jeff Carroll]

I live in a network backwater where all large-scale data xfers take place
via sneakernet. These days the primary media are DEC TK50 (for VMS stuff)
and QIC tape (for UNIX stuff).  I have about 10MB of .tar.Z files which
are taking up space on the machine where my email/ftp/news account is
located.

I have two machines with QIC drives at my site; one is a Tektronix 4337
with whatever drive they use, and the other is an Intel 310 running System
V 3.2, with a Bell Technologies drive package (hardware mfr unknown).

At the network gateway, they have only 9-track on the primary host (an
Ultrix VAX); they have a lot of Suns in the vicinity.

First we tried to write everything with a Sun tape drive. The tape was
completely unreadable on both of my machines.

Next I tried dcp to a VMS host, archive to TK50, load to VAX, binary-mode
Kermit to Unix box. Files were mangled beyond uncompress' ability to cope.

Next I drove down the street to a colleague's Iris, which is
network-connected. This box refused to write anything to my 1/4" tapes.

I'm getting frustrated with this. Can anyone recommend a good reading list
or reference work on the ins and outs of various makes of QIC tape drives?
DETAIL is what I'm after. (I'm an EE, I can handle it.) Why can't I make
these machines speak the same language?

What I'd really like to do is write a driver which could read the
native-mode tape formats of all the machines I deal with.

	Thanks for any help.
	Jeff Carroll
	carroll at atc.boeing.com