Via: uk.ac.ulcc.vmsfe; Mon, 15 Aug 1994 11:06:59 +0100
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 94 11:06 GMT
From: "Kevin Ashley, Systems Development, ULCC" <CZIWKGA AT VMSFE DOT ULCC DOT AC DOT UK>
To: DJGPP <DJGPP AT SUN DOT SOE DOT CLARKSON DOT EDU>
Subject: Using DJTAR programs to write to DAT tape

Greetings all, and advance apologies for a message which is only 
slightly on-topic. I've been asked to assist some folks who are
trying to shift quantities of data between a PC system and Unix system
via DAT tape. They are having problems finding a format they both
understand... The obvious answer to me appears to be tar, since I know 
I have working tar programs under MSDOS using djgpp. However, I've
only used tar on disk files in this way. I've not yet seen their setup,
and I'm unsure how the DAT device appears on the system and whether it
is accessible using DJGPPs stdio library, or any other I/O method
under DJGPP. Creating the tar files on disk and using some other
method to copy them to the DAT drives is a no-no since we are talking
about creating full tapes with approx. 1 Gbyte of info on each and there
isn't the disk space to hold an intermediate file.

Does anyone have experience of trying to read/write SCSI-attached DAT
tapes using DJGPP that might be useful to me ? 

Thanks in advance. Reply to me and I will summarise to the list.

Kevin Ashley (K DOT Ashley AT ulcc DOT ac DOT uk)