Tape Storage for Dummies

From: John Lawson <jpl15_at_netcom.com>
Date: Sun Sep 13 17:28:10 1998

  This is an open letter to my Northern Brother-in-Scrap, Bruce
Lane, 'cause I know he's done this... and I thought maybe others
will have (or soon have) these questions too...

   Okay.. I realize now that all of my 20+ years of computer
experience has been on disk-based systems... and I am having some
fundamental-concept problems in understanding the basics of Tape, as
it is implemented under VMS (and maybe RT-11 too, I'll burn that
bridge when I get to it).

   On my now beautifully working uVAX II (thanks again Allison!) I
have a Cipher 9trk and a TK50... I have the MIcro VMS User's Manuals
VOL I & II. I understand the concept of mounting the devices and
allocating them (sort of), and I have successfully loaded, mounted,
allocated, and initialized a roll of tape on the Cipher. I have made
a Test directory on the HD called [TEST] ;} on which I have created
a couple of simple text files. I have tried to copy these files to
the tape (MSA0:), and it does *something*, the tape advances and the
HD led flickers, but when I try to copy these files back, all I get
are sequentially numbered blank directory entries.

  I mounted/foreign an RT-ll sig tape, and tried to copy it to the
HD; same thing. Show/Dev/MSA0: shows the right Volume Label.. but
the directories are empty when I copy them back...

  I am lacking in the basic understanding of how the tape system
works, so I thought to ask my Firends and Listmembers.


  Cheers

John
Received on Sun Sep 13 1998 - 17:28:10 BST