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Date:      Wed, 12 Apr 2000 21:58:30 -0700
From:      Brent Kearney <brent@kearneys.ca>
To:        Derrick Baumer <bduk@earthlink.net>, FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org>
Subject:   Re: Is FTape broken?
Message-ID:  <20000412215830.A72839@kearneys.ca>
In-Reply-To: <200004121035.DAA08993@earthlink.net>; from bduk@earthlink.net on Wed, Apr 12, 2000 at 03:35:26AM -0700
References:  <XFMail.000411161016.mj@isy.liu.se> <200004121035.DAA08993@earthlink.net>

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On Wed, Apr 12, 2000 at 03:35:26AM -0700, Derrick Baumer wrote:
> 
> ) From: Micke Josefsson <mj@isy.liu.se>
> ) 
> ) On 11-Apr-00 Derrick Baumer wrote:
> ) > I have a (very) old Conner SuperStore 800<-(I think) QIC-80 tape
> ) > drive.  It has served me faithfully under Windows, Linux, and even
> ) > FreeBSD<-(about 5 years ago).  For the life of me, I cannot get it
> ) > to work now.
> ) 
> ) I believe ft-stuff has been removed since 3.0. You could try a
> ) websearch for Mark Hannon och ftape, he had made a patch for it, but
> ) I cant for my life remember the webaddress:(
> 
> That makes sense and I will look for the site.  I wonder if anybody
> can tell me why the ft program is still part of the base installation,
> though, and why the kernel still recognizes the ftape options and why
> the ft* devices are still available in /dev/MAKEDEV?
> 

Here's a (the?) site:

http://w1.874.telia.com/~u87405149/ftape.html

Although, I followed the instructions on my box, which has the same
hardware you described, running FreeBSD 3.4-STABLE, and could not get
any ft0 device.  I gave up after many hours of fidgetting.

The general attitude seems to be that this type of hardware is
"non-standard", and not very popular, and so no one has been
interested in developing software for it.  As a result, support for it
has been removed from FreeBSD.

The solution may be to use it in a Linux box instead, or give it to 
someone else who runs an OS with more robust hardware support (I 
don't think theres any resale value left in them!).  Let me know if 
you get it to work, maybe I'll try again ;)

-Brent

____________________________________________
brent@kearneys.ca

"The follies of the last debauch should be
buried in eternal oblivion, in order to give
full scope to the follies of the next."

--David Hume
Of Political Society
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