From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Jul 23 0: 4:11 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mass.osd.bsdi.com (adsl-63-202-177-51.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net [63.202.177.51]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1C7E737B957; Sun, 23 Jul 2000 00:04:05 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from msmith@mass.osd.bsdi.com) Received: from mass.osd.bsdi.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mass.osd.bsdi.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id AAA12925; Sun, 23 Jul 2000 00:13:32 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from msmith@mass.osd.bsdi.com) Message-Id: <200007230713.AAA12925@mass.osd.bsdi.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.1.1 10/15/1999 To: "R. D. Davis" Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Legacy Device Support (Was RE: No help...) In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 22 Jul 2000 20:23:54 EDT." Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 00:13:32 -0700 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > > Firstly, I'm using relatively new hardware, less than two years old; > the motherboard, which I paid a lot more for than the typical generic > clone board, is manufactured by Mainboard, which was one of the few > boards at the time whose manufacturer guaranteed it to work with > FreeBSD. Which model, just out of curiosity? > The SCSI controller, an Adaptec 1542B, and one of the tape The 1542B is certainly more than two years old; you haven't been able to buy anything older than the C for more like three or four years now. > drives, an Exabyte 8200, are relatively standard - not new, but not The 8200 was discontinued around 1993, IIRC. (Someone will probably correct me here.) > I can see support being dropped for things like video and sound cards, > and even ethernet boards, however, dropping support for _tapes_ that > were written using older version of the OS seems more than peculiar. What makes you think that support for any tapes has been dropped? Please supply your source of evidence suggesting that, in particular the 8200 (of which FTL has at least one still functional example) has been somehow desupported. Note that as with any Exabyte product, you *MUST* be running mainline firmware. There are several *hundred* different firmware combinations (initiator, servo, you name it) for the 8200, and some of these are *intentionally* broken for specific vendors. > Making stored data itself obsolete is not a good thing for the > reputation of any operating system, and dropping support for relatively > standard tape drives, even if they're not the latest and greatest, > doesn't make much sense to me. Of course it doesn't. Claiming that such a thing has been done in public in front of people that know better doesn't make much sense to me either. -- ... every activity meets with opposition, everyone who acts has his rivals and unfortunately opponents also. But not because people want to be opponents, rather because the tasks and relationships force people to take different points of view. [Dr. Fritz Todt] To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message