Kennedy Tape Drive & Sun 4/260

[Grootwassink, David]

About six months ago I posted a question about attaching a Sun-4/260 to a
Kennedy 9300 tape drive with a Xylogics 472 board. (Currently attached to
a Chromatics 7900 fondly refered to as Chromatasaurs Rex)

About two days after posting that message, I got pulled off that project,
and on to another.  This week I finally got back to the tape drive and
wanted to thank all that helped me out!!!!!!

Many people pointed me in the right direction with phone numbers for
Kennedy (now part of Shuggart (sp?)) and Xylogics.  There were also many
mentions of the fact that the actual controller is a Multibus board that
is encased in a VME adaptor.  The Multibus board had S50 connectors on it
that were the standard PERTEC pinout.

Mark W @ utig.ig.utexas.edu pointed out that the 472 is really a tape
"coupler" and required a FORMATTED interface, that prompted me to do some
additional checking on our tape drive and found that it did in-fact have a
formatter.

My favorite suggestion came from Dan Lorenzini @ Greenwich Capital
Markets.   His suggestion was to donate the Chromatics and Tape Drive to
the Smithsonian.  

Thanks Again to :

<aydt at cymbal.cs.uiuc.edu>"  			9-JAN-1990 21:17:04.56
symult!david at csvax.caltech.edu"		        12-JAN-1990 17:04:02.70
markw at utig.ig.utexas.edu" 			12-JAN-1990 19:29:06.79
<wja%computer-science.nottingham.ac.uk>		13-JAN-1990 01:55:06.54
<phill%med-image.compsci.bristol.ac.uk>		13-JAN-1990 09:21:17.10
earle at poseur.jpl.nasa.gov" 			13-JAN-1990 21:17:03.03
latlog!ALASTAIR at relay.EU.net" 			15-JAN-1990 06:34:49.39
gcm!amadeus!dal at uunet.UU.NET" 			16-JAN-1990 09:04:21.97
harp at terra.pkg.mcc.com" 			29-JAN-1990 04:46:14.62
<garton at cunixa.cc.columbia.edu>" 		29-JAN-1990 08:44:42.53
navoceano%oacis.dnet at turner-joy"	        29-JAN-1990 09:15:28.72
<brooks at osiris.cso.uiuc.edu>" 			29-JAN-1990 15:06:17.16
<miller at cs.uiuc.edu>" 				30-JAN-1990 10:15:41.06
goroff at ttidca.TTI.COM" 				30-JAN-1990 23:04:43.11
cognex!fred at rutgers.edu (Fred Barber)		7-FEB-1990 17:38:19.48
<BOBW at cc.usu.edu>" 				30-JAN-1990 09:34:53.17
<miller at cs.uiuc.edu>" 				30-JAN-1990 10:15:41.06

P.S.

Now for a follow up question:  Yesterday I made the cables and hooked the
tape drive up.  Today when I tried to test it for the first time I had
some major problems.  Since I am really a software guy, and don't know a
whole lot about hardware outside of a classroom (not to mention I have no
clue as to how to read UNIX error messages), I need some help.

During the boot sequence the 472 is reported like this:

xtc0 at vme16d16 0xee60 vec 0x64
xt0 at xtc0 

When I try to do a write operation to the drive this happens:

$ tar cvf /dev/rmt0 

/* The tape starts spinning at this point */

xt0: lost interrupt
xt0: hard error bn=0 er=4
xt0: attempting reset
xt0: lost interrupt
xt0: bad command synchronization
xt0: bad command synchronization
tar: tape write error: I/O  Error

In short HELP!!!

					-Eternally Grateful
						Dave

  Lt. Dave Grootwassink                      USAF Tactical Air Warfare Center
             INTERNET: GROOTWASS at TAWC1.EGLIN.AF.MIL  (129.61.5.1)