From: alexl@alvarez.COM (/dev/null)
Newsgroups: biz.sco.general
Subject: Re: Tape drive on floppy controller, no fun
Date: 28 Dec 92 15:50:15 GMT
Organization: [resent by] The SCOGEN gateway and Propagation Society
Resent-From: mmdf@xenitec.on.ca
Submit-To: scogen@xenitec.on.ca
Precedence: bulk

.>   In <9212231532.aa13151@dlpco.dlpco.COM> lee@dlpco.dlpco.COM (Lee Penn ) writes:

.>   :DLP Votes DOWN THUMBS on Colorado J-Tape drives.  They should be 
.>   :avoided at all costs.  We have several customers who have junked 
.>   :these drives.  One just spent 2 solid weeks working with the 

        I second that vote!!!!

.>   This is the same experience we had when we last used CMS drives
.>   about 3 years ago.  We only have one client who's still using his
.>   and it's been replaced at least 4 times because of hardware
.>   failures (only the first time was free).

        I went through FIVE Irvin tape drives and 20 hours in two 
weeks. When I decided that I was no longer going to support a 
system, on which I could not be assured a good backup! The 
customer felt that the drive should work and wanted me to 
continue trying. I explained the her that for what she was paying 
me she could of perchased 2 new drives that use the BIG 
cartridge.  (I sold her an Archive 60Meg internal, haven't had a 
problem since. |-). )


.>   :"experts" at Colorado.  He sometimes could write to the tape, 
.>   :sometimes not, sometimes even read the tape he wrote to most of 
.>   :the time not.

        "experts" I would tend to use that comment loosely.

.>   Sounds familiar.  CMS appears to know little or nothing about
.>   Xenix/UNIX.  For some strange reason they decided to change their
.>   /dev names from one release to another breaking some shell
.>   scripts I had written (I guess they think people will use their
.>   brain-dead backup utilities).

        Brain-dead would suggest a mind was involved.

.>   :Plus, the problem of not being able to boot from a floppy and 
.>   :access the device.

.>   Now why would anyone want to anything like that :-).

         This sould sound familiar. "Gee, that's interesting it 
works on my machine and I'm running 5.0."

.>   :I DON'T think they work well at all and would never recommend 
.>   :them.

.>   I hate it when I come across them.  I got a call to set up a new
.>   UNIX system for a local school district and asked what kind of
.>   tape drives they had (upgrading from old 286 Xenix system).  My
.>   involuntary reaction of ``oh God!'' when she said the new system
.>   had a CMS drive upset the client.  Then she told me that the
.>   machine has a 200MB IDE drive and I knew it had been spec'ed by a
.>   DOSoid (I had hoped to be able to take my external SCSI drive to
.>   the client site to transfer data).

        When the customer tells me about the drive and how the 
have never had a problem backing up their system. I say "Sure it 
will backup just fine, but if and when you really need it will it 
be able to read your entire company data." When it comes to data I 
don't mess around. The woman in the story above had a HD crash 
earlier last week. I was able to reinstall their system in 3hrs. 
because she had made backups the day before, she makes them when 
she  leaves in the afternoon, whenever she does  major change and 
whenever she closes a month. Because the system died at night we 
had current backups. I installed a partial OS linked in the tape 
drivers and boom away we went.


Morale of the story you can't put a price on data....


.>   Bill
.>   -- 
.>   INTERNET:  bill@Celestial.COM   Bill Campbell; Celestial Software
.>   UUCP:   ...!thebes!camco!bill   6641 East Mercer Way
.>                uunet!camco!bill   Mercer Island, WA 98040; (206) 947-5591
.>   SPEED COSTS MONEY -- HOW FAST DO YOU WANT TO GO?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  /  ) //            _//                   Alexander Lopez
 /--/ // _  _.,      /    _____   _  __.   Alex Alvarez and Associates
/  (_</_</_/ /\_    /___ (_) /_)_</_/  |_  alexl@alvarez.COM
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