cpio of AT&T Source Tape under 4.3bsd

[John Nall]

We have never had a need to acess our source code tape
from AT&T, although we have had it for awhile.  Now that
the need has come up, there seems to be a phase error in
reading it using 4.3bsd.  Apparently the way AT&T writes
their tape is incompatible with the way cpio works under
4.3bsd.  So far as we can determine, the few options that
cpio provides doesn't really help.  Is this a known problem?
If so, can anyone point us in the proper direction?

Thanks for any suggestions

John Nall
Computer Science Department
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 
(nall at nu.cs.fsu.edu  Arpa/Inet)

p.s.  If this is a dumb question, feel free to flame.  But
do it gently, and with direction...