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Date:      Mon, 8 May 2000 10:30:52 +0930
From:      Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
To:        Mike Smith <msmith@FreeBSD.ORG>
Cc:        Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de>, freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Undocumented tape devices in pax(1)
Message-ID:  <20000508103052.H61921@freebie.lemis.com>
In-Reply-To: <200005072348.QAA12373@mass.cdrom.com>
References:  <8f4s5f$1nfa$1@bigeye.rhein-neckar.de> <200005072348.QAA12373@mass.cdrom.com>

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On Sunday,  7 May 2000 at 16:48:36 -0700, Mike Smith wrote:
>> Mike Smith <msmith@FreeBSD.ORG> wrote:
>>
>>> The 'r' prefix for tape devices is entirely unrelated to the 'r' prefix
>>> for disk devices.
>>
>> I'd like to see some backup for this assertion. Historically, BSD
>> (up to 4.4) used to have
>>
>>     mt  block device, rewinding
>>    nmt  block device, non-rewinding
>>    rmt  character device, rewinding
>>   nrmt  character device, non-rewinding
>>
>> which leaves little room to doubt.
>
> Interesting.  I've never encountered a tape device to which the buffer
> cache was applicable, except for the mythical SunOS swap-to-tape story,
> and the 'r' has always been "rewind" for as long as I can remember.

I suspect that's an assumption on your part.  I think we've come up
with enough man pages to support naddy's statement.

> We haven't made non-'r' devices since MAKEDEV rev 1.5.

For good reasons :-)

Greg
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