(Un)supported hardware

# 5. (Un)supported hardware

Contents of this section

## 5.1 Mixing `ftape` and floppiesSupported tape drives

All drives that are both QIC-117 compatible and either QIC-40 or QIC-80 compatible should work. There are also experimental support of QIC-3010 and QIC-3020 drives (QIC-3010/302 can use 8mm tapes. This is sometimes refered to as `QIC-WIDE'). Currently, the list of drives that are known to work with `ftape` is:

- Alloy Retriever 250
- Archive 5580i / XL9250i
- Colorado DJ-10 / DJ-20 (aka: Jumbo 120 / Jumbo 250)
- Conner C250MQ
- Conner TSM420R
- Conner TSM850R
- Escom / Archive (Hornet) 31250Q
- Insight 80Mb
- Iomega 250
- IOmega Ditto Tape Insider 1700 (other Ditto drives probably work too)
- Mountain FS8000
- Summit SE 150 / SE 250
- Tallgrass FS300 (needs a tiny hack to work with AHA1542B)
- Memorex tape drive backup system
- Wangtek 3080F

You can always check out the newest list of drives that are recognised by `ftape`, by looking in the file `vendors.h` in the `ftape` distribution.

Although I do not want to endorse one drive type over another, I want to mention that the Colorado DJ-20 drive is rather noisy, when compared to, say, a Conner C250MQ drive ('tis said that the Colorado is 5-10 times as noisy as the Conner drive. I can't tell for sure, but I have a Colorado, and it is quite noisy).

If you have a Tallgrass FS300 and an AHA1542B, you need to increase the bus-on / bus-off time of the 1542B. Antti Virjo (`<klanvi@uta.fi>`), says that changing `CMD_BUSON_TIME` to 4 and `CMD_BUSOFF_CMD` to 12 in `linux/drivers/scsi/aha1542.c` will do the trick.

One user has reported that `ftape` works (partially) the with Conner TSM420R drive, which supports both QIC-80 (normal) and `QIC-WIDE' tapes. As of right now, `ftape` provides only experimental support for QIC-WIDE tapes, and you should be aware of this. Hopefully, the TSM420R drive, and other QIC-WIDE drives, will be supported fully soon. If you have a drive that can use QIC-WIDE tapes, are interested in getting it to work with `ftape`, and not afraid of being ALPHA tester, drop Bas `<bas@vimec.nl>` a mail, stating which drive you have.

NOTE: If you have a drive that works fine, but it is not listed here, please send a mail to the HOWTO maintainer (`<khp@pip.dknet.dk>`).

## 5.2 Supported special controllers

These dedicated high-speed tape controllers are supported by `ftape`:

- Colorado FC-10
- Colorado FC-20
- Mountain MACH-2
- IOmega Tape Accelerator II

Support for the FC-10 controller has been merged into the `ftape` driver in version 1.12. See the `RELEASE-NOTES` and the `Makefile` files in the `ftape` distribution. Since of version 2.03 of `ftape`, the FC-20 controller will work (but do check the Release notes!).

The support for the MACH-2 controller was added in `ftape-1.14d`.

To use the IOmega Tape Accelerator II, use `-DMACH2`, and set the right settings for I/O base, IRQ and DMA. This works (by the empirical testing of Scott Bailey `<sbailey@xcc.mc.xerox.com>`), with at least `ftape-2.02`.

Anti-Colorado message:

As of lately, Colorado has proved themselves totally unwilling to help with FC-10 and FC-20 support. This is sad, and can only force me to say: Don't buy a Colorado high-speed controller, or even a Colorado tape drive. Why support a manufacturer who does not want to support his own product?

## 5.3 Supported special controllersUn-supported tape drives

- All drives that connect to the parallel port (eg: Colorado Trakker)
- High-Speed controller's. (eg: Colorado TC-15 & FC-20)
- Irwin AX250L / Accutrak 250. (not a QIC-80 drive)
- IBM Internal Tape Backup Unit (identical to the Irwin AX250L drive)
- COREtape light

Generally, ALL drives that connect to the parallel port are NOT supported. This is because these drives uses (different) proprietary interfaces, that are very much different from the QIC-117 standard.

The Colorado TC-15 controller (and its like) are not supported directly by the `ftape` driver. The only `special' controllers that can be used with `ftape` is the Colorado FC-10 and the Mountain MACH-2 (see above).

The Irwin AX250L (and the IBM Internal Tape Backup Unit) does not work the `ftape`. This is because they only support QIC-117, but not the QIC-80 standard (they use Irwin's proprietary servoe (Rhomat) format). I know nothing about the Rhomat format, nor where to get any info on it. Sorry.

The COREtape light, does not accept the initialisation commands, we're feeding it. This pretty much leaves the drive unusable.

## 5.4 Using an external tape drive with `ftape`

If you have a floppy controller which has a female DB37 connector on the bracket (and some means of delivering power to the drive), you can use it with `ftape`. OK, that sentence was not very obvious. Let's try it this way: Some FDC's (the very ancient one's), have a DB37 connector on the bracket, for connecting to external floppy drives.

If you make a suitable cable (from a quick glance on an FDC that I've got lying around, it seems to be a straight 1-to-1 cable. However, your milage may vary) from the DB37 connector (on the FDC) and to your external tape drive, you can get `ftape` to control your tape drive.

This is because that from a program's view there is no difference between the internal and the external connectors. So, from `ftape`'s point of view, they are identical.

## 5.5 Using an external tape drive with `ftape`Getting PCI motherboards to work with`ftape`

Unfortunately, some PCI motherboards cause problems when running `ftape`. Some people have experienced that `ftape` would not run in a PCI based box, but ran flawlessly in a normal ISA based 386DX machine. To quote from the `RELEASE-NOTES` file in the `ftape` distribution:

> `

>     More PCI news:
>     --------------

>     There have been more reports about PCI problems, some of them
>     were solved by upgrading the (flash) BIOS.
>     Other rumours are that it has to do with the FDC being on the
>     PCI bus, but that is not the case with the Intel Premiere boards.

>     Here is a list of systems and the BIOS versions known to work:

>     board:                          bios revision:

>     Intel Premiere PCI (Revenge)    1.00.09.AF2

>     Intel Premiere PCI II (Plato)   1.00.08.AX1 (disable GAT in BIOS!)
>                                     1.00.10.AX1

>     To see if you're having the GAT problem, try making a backup
>     under DOS. If it's very slow and often repositions you're
>     probably having this problem.

>     PCI news:
>     ---------
>     There have been some problem reports from people using PCI-bus based
>     systems getting overrun errors.
>     I wasn't able to reproduce these until I ran ftape on a Intel Plato
>     (Premiere PCI II) motherboard with bios version 1.00.08AX1.
>     It turned out that if GAT (Guaranteed Access Timing) is enabled (?)
>     ftape gets a lot of overrun errors.
>     The problem disappears when disabling GAT in the bios.
>     Note that Intel removed this setting (permanently disabled) from the
>     1.00.10AX1 bios !

>     It looks like that if GAT is enabled there are often large periods
>     (greater than 120 us !??) on the ISA bus that the DMA controller cannot
>     service the floppy disk controller.
>     I cannot imagine this being acceptable in a decent PCI implementation.
>     Maybe this is a `feature' of the chipset. I can only speculate why
>     Intel choose to remove the option from the latest Bios...

>     The lesson of this all is that there may be other motherboard
>     implementations having the same of similar problems.
>     If you experience a lot of overrun errors during a backup to tape,
>     see if there is some setting in the Bios that may influence the
>     bus timing.

> `

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