#Touchdown-100 Offer
20 messages in this thread
I just got my offer in the mail from CCS / New Horizons for the
Touchdown-100 tape drive. It says it is a 250MB system, but I've never
heard of it. Is this the same mechanism as the Wangtek (or is that
Wangtech…)? Has anyone else had any experience with these drives? Is this
a good deal ($500 for the drive alone if you already have QB 5.0 – seems
like a good deal, but….)?
Steve Anderson
Steve,
The drive reports as a Caliper using the SCSI-Interrogator. It will accept
either DC-6150 150MB tapes or DC-6250 250MB tapes. It is very fast, at
over 5 MB/minute and works well with Quarterback 5.0.
Mark Thomas
Central Coast Software
A division of New Horizons Software, Inc.
Mark, Is there an internal option available? Also (excuse my ignorance but
my only exposure to SCSI tapes is on a Unix system) is the tape random
access or does it create one huge file out of any write request and then
have to read into ram adn sort individual files withing the archive file to
get back any file you requested? And do you need to keep a seperate listing
of which files are in tape file1 and tape file2…. Is there a seperate
scsi driver for the tape or will it work with the gvpscsi.device?
wmc
Wayne,
The Touchdown 100 model is external only. The drive is sequential access
and all access to and from the tape is handled by Quarterback 5.0. It
works with your gvpscsi.device. You can backup multiple partitions to a
tape, and once on the tape, you can read each partition's catalog back in
and selectively restore files.
Mark Thomas
Central Coast Software
A division of New Horizons Software, Inc.
Mark: The fact that it will use the DC-6150 tapes is VERY good news. That
means that it is compatible with a ton of other QIC type tapes (we use 5 of
them at work) and I know lots of places to get them cheap. Great! OK…
despite my early complaints about QuarterBack 5.0, you guys are back on my
good list… Expect my order for this gem muy pronto…..
Steve
Could you give me a cheap source for these DC-6150 & DC-6250 QIC tapes?
Thanks.
Frys has them, but I can't recall what the price was. Seems as tho it was
pretty cheap. If I remember right, there's a ton of mail order places
advertising in Mac magazines. I do know their not too hard to come by, but
I've never had to buy them myself. We use them at work.
Steve
I use the QIC tapes at work too but they won't part with any; even in sizes
that they can't use. I'll take a peek in some of the Mac mags. Thanks.
iF YOU ARE USING A QIC WATCH WHICH CONTROLLER YOU ARE USING ?
IF YOU HAVE A NEXUS MOST QIC DEVICES DONT WORK.. YOU CAN NOT CONFIGURE
THEM.. THE AMIGA JUST HANGS WITH QB 5.X
IT WORKED OK WITH VERSION 4 AND WITH AMIBACK AND EVERY OTHER PROGRAM THAT I
HAVE TRIED.
MY COPY OF QB5.0.2 IS USELESS… ANY ONE WANT TO BUY IT ?
NO ONE SEEMS TO WANT TO TALK TO ME.. BUT I FIND THAT TYPICAL OF AMERICAN
COMPANYS .. IGNORE THE EUROPEAN USERS… (I STILL HAVE NOT BEEN OFFICIALLY
NOTIFIED ABOUT THE RELEASE OF V 5 ? )
DAVE
I'm using a MicroBotics controller and it works fine with my Viper tape
drive.
I can report that the thing works fine with a C= 2091. Don't beat up too
much on CCS if the Nexus doesn't work. The Caliper drive they use is very
common with the rest of SCSI humanity and the very same one that is in the
Amiga tape drive (3070?). If you have a problem, it's probably because the
Nexus doesn't follow the rules. Really, the Calier drive is used in alot of
Sun and HP 3rd party things….
For what it's worth, I believe that 5.0 QB was not ready for release, and
we users were abused by having to be the beta testers for what should have
been a releasable product. However, true to form CCS/New Horizons has been
very good about trying to fix the thing, and they seem (I hope) to have it
almost fixed (see the next paragraph). This is still a good company,
although maybe not as good as before… Don't blame them for every problem
that some other 3rd party driver has.
Having said that, I can state that my copy of 5.0.2 still crashes my
machine. However, I've managed to narrow it down to when I run my scree
(err) screen saver. I run "Spliner" which is a great PD program that has no
problem with any other application I run. However, QB barfs almost as soon
as the screen blanks – goes straight to the GURU. As long as I turn off
Spliner before I run QB, I can let it go with the new tape drive (the
Touchdown thing) and all goes well. I'm very happy with the tape drive, and
it seems to work with BTN and BRU as well.
Steve
Stephen,
Thank you for your response, and for your support of our products. We do
appreciate it greatly.
I would like to mention, however, that the majority of the problems we have
had with Quarterback 5.0 have been either due to problems in various SCSI
controllers, or getting it to work with some PD software that does not
operate quite properly; not because Quarterback was "not ready for
release". We would never purposely release a product that we felt was
still error-prone. We fully understand that many of these controllers and
PD programs work well with other products, but Quarterback makes a number
of system calls and interactions that no other program (to my knowledge)
exercises (for example, the Nexus controller does not implement some of the
SCSI calls we make, and has caused us problems as a result). We are
working to put solutions to these problems into Quarterback, and are in
contact with the SCSI controller manufacturers to let them know of the
problems we come across.
It is true that the old Quarterback did not have these problems. But the
old Quarterback did not support streaming tape at all, and so did not have
to worry about these SCSI problems.
Rest assured that we are constantly working hard to improve Quarterback,
and that it will remain the most powerful and best supported backup program
for the Amiga.
James Bayless
Central Coast Software
A division of New Horizons Software, Inc.
[B [B [A [A/exit
With regards to the problems with Quarterback version 5 and certain
controllers i.e. Nexus my cipher ST150 (The transport in a large number of
solutions) will not configure under QB5 It hangs the SCSI bus. It works
perfectly with QB4.2, Ami-Back, CBM`s Backup, Flaskback, BTN driver, etc. I
have written to the manufacturer of the Nexus card and got the following
reply
I QUOTE :- " The only issue I can address with the above is that of
Quarterback 5.0.2. This program is still not solid enough for anyon to be
making accusations about oe to be making accusations about our drivers. I
have tested this version here on an Amiga 3000, and it does not work with a
ta drive on it either. also the compression does not appear to happen (or
at least not on any HD I`ve tried it on), and if you try to backup to
multiple SyQuests, when you insert the se second cartridge, the program
crashes. Therefore I cannot recommend this program." PLEASE NOTE THESE WERE
THEIR WORDS NOT MINE.
I would like a update of what is happening, and if you say that Nexus do
not use certain scsi commands tell me what they are .
Dave
I think you sent your reply to the wrong person.
The cheapest I've paid for a DC 6150 is around $19.00. I get them from a
mail-order place called Diskette Connection. They ship from Delaware and I
think Texas. Since they're in Wilmington, DE my home state I save the
shipping and waiting and just go over there and pick up tapes and disks as
needed.
Diskette Connection
(EAST) 1-800-451-1849
(WEST) 1-800-654-4058
Chris
Thanks a lot for the lead on inexpensive tapes! The one tape I bought a
few weeks ago was about $26.50 at a "discount" stationary store.
MEI/Micro in Columbus Ohio has DC6150s at $15.67 each for 5+, $16.67 each
for 2-4, DC6250s for $21.57 each for 5+, 22.57 each for 2-4, plus $0.40
each for shipping.
1-800-634-3478
I've been buying disks from them for years and just started buying my
Deskjet cartridges from them with no problems ever.
Peter
Thanks for the info on the inexpensive tapes! Those are the lowest
prices I've seen so far.
How does 16.67 for 2 – 4 peices or 15.67 for 5+ pieces sound for those DC
6150 tapes?
MEI/Micro Center at 800-634-3478.
wmc
That price sound a devil of a lot better than the $24+ I've been paying.
for DC6150 tapes. Thanks!