150 Mb Archive Viper can't write 60 Mb tapes???

[Gary Heston]

In article <212 at twg.UUCP> bill at twg.UUCP (Bill Irwin) writes:
>The sould of this when I heard it was so absurd I just had to ask the net
>right  away.   We are just installing an Archive Viper 150Mb  tape  drive
>into  an i386 running SCO UNIX (current release).  One of the technicians
>said  that  it could read 60Mb tapes produced on a 60Mb streamer, but  it
>couldn't produce tapes that could be read by the 60Mb.

I don't consider it absurd, and this behavior isn't limited to Archive
products. Tandberg 3660s' are only readable on other 3660s (they're SCSI
150MB drives), but it can read tapes written on 3640s (120MB) or 3620s
(60MB). A tape from a 3620 can be read on any of them, and a tape from
a 3640 can be read on a 3640 or 3660.

Reportedly, we've got a few 3660s with special firmware that allow
them to write on the older tapes, but it's still not readable by
the older drives. The 150MB drives (other than those specials) use
150MB tapes, written at 150MB density. Older drives can't read them.

>I'll  be  digging  into the manual when I get into the office  after  the
>weekend,  but  I thought I would throw this out now because I can't  wait
>for the answer.

Ok... Wangteks work the same way, also. I don't have any experience 
with other drives, but backward read compatability seems to be the 
way the industry is going. I don't know how I'd tell a tape drive 
that I wanted it to cut it's write density by 60% or so...

-- 
    Gary Heston     { uunet!sci34hub!gary  }    System Mismanager
   SCI Technology, Inc.  OEM Products Department  (i.e., computers)
"The esteemed gentleman says I called him a liar. That's true, and I
regret it." Retief, a character created by Keith Laumer.