From: jeff@wildcat.contex.com (Jeff Carey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Using (setting up) a 9 track tape drive (?)
Date: 8 Jan 93 23:20:03 GMT
Organization: Xyvision Design Systems

In article <1993Jan7.185622.16632@Princeton.EDU> brett@surfpix.princeton.edu (Brett Borowski) writes:
>
>Howdy!
>
>  I have a 9-track tape drive that I'd like to get working  under 4.0.5.
>It used to work on the machine that was running 3.3, but that has since
>been upgraded.  Everything works except for the variable block size stuff.
>There is no device in /dev/mt to accomodate it.  I saw Dave Olsen's
>earlier post, but I need some more specifics.  Here are the details
>about the drive (from mt stat):
>
>Controller:  SCSI
>Device: HP: 88780                A657
>Status: 0x20266
>Drive type: unknown
>Media: READY, write protected, at BOT      (I have a tape in right now...)
>
>Any info would be greatly appreciated!
>
>Brett
>-- 
>brett@surfpix.princeton.edu		(Finger for more info...)

You need to edit the file /usr/sysgen/master.d/tpsc, adding
a definition for your tape drive.
For our Cipher 990 tape drives with NCR scsi piggyback (with prom
revision 008), we copied the definition for the Kennedy and made small
changes.  Read comments in tpsc file for explanation.
"man mtio" and/or "man tps" on-line manual pages may be helpful.
Also, "/usr/include/sys/mtio.h" and/or "/usr/include/sys/tpsc.h" may
also help.  Now that I think about it, "/usr/include/sys/tpsc.h" will
definitely help.

This is our addition for tpsc file "Revision: 3.19" and "Revision: 3.21",
which are applicable with IRIX 4.0.1 thru 4.0.5F:

	,
	{ KENNEDY96X2, TP9TRACK, 7, 0, "NCR H62", "", 0, 0,
	   {3, 6, 2, 1}, MTCAN_BSF|MTCAN_BSR|MTCAN_APPEND|MTCAN_LEOD |
	     MTCAN_CHKRDY|MTCAN_VAR| MTCAN_SETSZ|
		 MTCAN_SYNC|MTCANT_RET,
	  20, 150, 20*60, 5*60, 512, 60*512 }


After editting the file, you must run "/etc/autonconfig" (see
"man autoconfig"), and reboot.

The "mt -t /dev/mt/tps0d7nrnsv sta" for this drive returns:

	Controller: SCSI
	Device: NCR H621: 0-STD1-03-46M990        
	Status: 0x20262
	Drive type: 9 track
	Media : READY, writable, at BOT

See "device:", above--it corresponds to the fifth field of the definition.
The fact that your mt stat returns (among other things):
Drive type: unknown
means that the "tp_vendor" field (atleast) of your definition is not
correct.  Where I have `"NCR H62"' you should probably have `"HP: 887"'
with "tp_vlen" also set to 7.  (For these fields, see the definition of
struct tpsc_types in /usr/include/sys/tpsc.h.) Note the definitons of
MAX_INQ_VID and MAX_INQ_PID which are 8 and 16, respectively.  We have
not used the "tp_product" field, but have had a problem with the "tp_vendor"
field when, at one time, we had it 8 characters long...the MAX_INQ_VID
value must account for the NULL at the end of the string. (I wish this
had been explained more clearly	in the file, or somewhere.) Anyhow,
(MAX_INQ_?ID - 1) is the longest these fields can be, I believe.

I suspect that you have these correct, but the minor numbers associated
with the device names are (for scsi device 7, atleast):

   0 crw-rw-rw-   2 root     sys       23,224 Jan  5 15:30 /dev/mt/tps0d7
   0 crw-rw-rw-   2 root     sys       23,225 Jan  5 15:30 /dev/mt/tps0d7nr
   0 crw-rw-rw-   2 root     sys       23,227 Jan  5 15:30 /dev/mt/tps0d7nrns
   0 crw-rw-rw-   2 root     sys       23,231 Jan  8 15:34 /dev/mt/tps0d7nrnsv
   0 crw-rw-rw-   2 root     sys       23,229 Jan  8 15:34 /dev/mt/tps0d7nrv
   0 crw-rw-rw-   2 root     sys       23,226 Jan  5 15:30 /dev/mt/tps0d7ns
   0 crw-rw-rw-   2 root     sys       23,230 Jan  8 15:34 /dev/mt/tps0d7nsv
   0 crw-rw-rw-   2 root     sys       23,228 Jan  8 15:34 /dev/mt/tps0d7v

Good luck.

-jeff

-- 
Jeff Carey
jeff@contex.com       (or: contex!jeff@uunet.uu.net)