Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2011 21:00:38 -0800 From: perryh@pluto.rain.com To: dieterbsd@engineer.com Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: easy way to determine if a stream or fd is seekable Message-ID: <4ec5e676.P%2BDwfO0SrmiegcuB%perryh@pluto.rain.com> In-Reply-To: <20111117175514.274040@gmx.com> References: <20111117175514.274040@gmx.com>
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"Dieter BSD" <dieterbsd@engineer.com> wrote: > IIRC some tape drives can seek, while others cannot. > Vague memories that it is supposed to be possible to put a > filesystem on a DECtape and mount the filesystem. Back in the Bell Labs 6th Edition days, it was possible to put a filesystem on a _9-track magtape_ and mount it, although such a mount had to be read-only since writing to a 9-track would effectively delete any blocks following the one written. I've done it. Access was painfully slow (no surprise), but it did work. DECtape _could_ be updated in place. It was effectively the linear equivalent of a floppy disk (before floppy disks existed). Sequential access was slow. Random access was very slow.
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