#Use PC Tape systems
19 messages in this thread
Has anyone out there tried to use Quarterback with one of the tape drives
that are available for the PC's (such as the Conner 250's) which attach to
either the floppy controllers or attach to the parallel port? External
drives for the PC are cheap, and the ones for the SCSI interface cost way
too much. It seems that a driver to attach these PC drives to the Amiga
should be fairly simple. Has it been done?
I am so tired of backing up to floppies.
Bill Roberts — Autopilot from Ellettsville, Indiana
There isn't any way to use one of those tape drives on the Amiga right
now.
The parallel one probably wouldn't work at all due to the differences in
the parallel port, and the floppy port one would need some kind of
hardware interface (very much like what in an Amiga floppy drive,) and
driver software.
I'm very tempted to try this as I have a Jumbo 120 that I took out of my
PC, but I have NO idea where I'd get the info I'd need about the tape
drive to write a driver…
Bob Comer — Hakuna Matata!
Cheyenne, Wyoming U.S.A.
"I'm very tempted to try this as I have a Jumbo 120 that I took out of my
PC, but I have NO idea where I'd get the info I'd need about the tape
drive to write a driver…"
As far as I know, the Amiga CIA ports (serial, floppy, parallel) can't
match the speed of current IBM-compatible parallel ports. I think this has
been the case since the IBM-AT. The Amiga parallel and floppy ports max
out at 50K/sec, probably too slow for most tape drives.
I think your only hope would be to go trough a more modern parallel port
adapter, like a GVP IOextender.
-Chris
> As far as I know, the Amiga CIA ports (serial, floppy, parallel) can't
>match the speed of current IBM-compatible parallel ports. I think this
>has been the case since the IBM-AT. The Amiga parallel and floppy ports
>max out at 50K/sec, probably too slow for most tape drives.
Your right about the parallel. (That's primarily why I said the same
thing.) As to the floppy port, I don't know. I haven't looked up the
xfer speed of these things. Your probably right though.
btw, for serial, only the boards that have a FIFO SIO chip can beat the
Amiga. (Not widespread until recently, most PC's don't have them yet.)
(Just talking from personal experience here, not specs.)
> I think your only hope would be to go trough a more modern parallel port
>adapter, like a GVP IOextender.
That's not an option either, no slots. 🙂
Bob Comer — Hakuna Matata!
Cheyenne, Wyoming U.S.A.
"As to the floppy port, I don't know. I haven't looked up the xfer speed
of these things. Your probably right though."
If it could go faster, we wouldn't need special 1/2 speed HD floppies for
the Amiga.
I'm aware of the serial differences, but that has nothing to do with tape
backups. I was comparing the Amiga ports only to the IBM parallel port.
-Chris
> If it could go faster, we wouldn't need special 1/2 speed HD floppies
>for the Amiga.
Yeah, but what is the transfer rate of the tape drives?
> I'm aware of the serial differences, but that has nothing to do with
>tape backups. I was comparing the Amiga ports only to the IBM parallel
>port.
You included the serial port in your original post…
Bob Comer — Hakuna Matata!
Cheyenne, Wyoming U.S.A.
>> Yeah, but what is the transfer rate of the tape drives?
about 150 kb/sec, perhaps a bit more.
Martin Korndoerfer, Bavaria, Germany
Also flying on AutoPilot
Sorry, of course, there is an 0 to much in my previous answer… The
correct value would be
about 15 kByte/sec, perhaps a bit more…
🙂
Martin Korndoerfer, Bavaria, Germany
Also flying on AutoPilot
I thought 150K might have been high. 🙂
Cranking my PC backup times through a calculator netted a speed of 47K a
sec, so maybe the Amiga can handle the load…
Bob Comer — Hakuna Matata!
Cheyenne, Wyoming U.S.A.
Bob,
to handle single density drives you need a speed around 15-25 kb/sec, to
handle high density drives at full speed, you have to double that speed…
I think there is no way. But – who wants floppy streamers after all? SCSI
streamers aren't THAT much more expensive these days and you will get at
least 5 MB/min (85 kb/sec). With a DAT streamer the rate is even higher,
about 10-15 MB/min (170-255 kb/sec).
Martin Korndoerfer, Bavaria, Germany
Also flying on AutoPilot
>> SCSI streamers aren't THAT much more expensive these days…
Cost for one of the floppy streamers is about $180 at HH Greg. Cost for
the cheapest SCSI QIC tapes are around $400. (In both cases, that is as
an internal unit.) Add about $50 for the case on a floppy streamer, and
$100 (the cheapest SCSI compatable case I have seen in the magazines), and
the SCSI costs over twice as much no matter how you slice it.
Bill Roberts — Autopilot from Ellettsville, Indiana
They're that much more expensivearound here! I paid $100 for my 250MB
streaming tape drive…
Bob Comer — Hakuna Matata!
Cheyenne, Wyoming U.S.A.
The average PC transfers data through the Parallel port at 45Kb/sec. The
Ami can cope with this speed however, no-one/no company has written
drivers for parallel based streamers as the companies who make them don't
feel the Amiga market is sufficiently large to re-coup development costs
and turn an attractive profit.
Now the C= have (realistically) disappeared, it makes the market even less
attractive.
Sorry but thats the way it is 🙁
Now if someone was to get the source for the B/U s/w on the PC's to backup
to these parallel streamers and change whats neccessary and recompile on
the Amiga, then they might just sell some more…
Kevin
Flying AutoPilot from Surry in the UK
"The average PC transfers data through the Parallel port at 45Kb/sec."
Correction. The average PC (meaning the majority of machines sold) can
transfer at well over 150K/sec through the parallel port, as evidenced by
the the fairly popular portable SCSI adapters that attach to this port.
This speed is achieved by hardware that has been pretty much standard
since the IBM-AT days (1985-ish). On the other hand, most of the world's
IBM compatibles have been sold within the last 3 or 4 years.
The Amiga parallel port cannot cope reliably with anything over 50K/sec.
This makes it unsuitable for most network and mass-storage devices.
Keep in mind that even if your tape drive does run at <=50K/sec, PC
driver source may be of no help, since the Amiga parallel port hardware is
proprietary and may require different programming altogether. You may want
to search the Internet for such Amiga drivers, but you'll be darned lucky
if you find one made for your particular brand/model of tape drive.
-Chris
"Yeah, but what is the transfer rate of the tape drives?"
My DAT drive runs about 180K/sec, just slightly slower than my ArcNet
card at 200K/sec.
-Chris
DAT's a bit faster than these cheapies…
You might find this a bit wierd, but I ran my last backup timings through
the old calculator just now, and using compression, I get 47K a second,
well within Paula's range…
I just dug out the manual on my Jumbo Drive, and it looks like it has two
transfer rates, one is 500Kbps, which works out to 62.5 KBytes/s, which is
slightly above what you say is Paula's limits, but, isn't a normal low
density floppy rated at 62.5K/s?
Bob Comer — Hakuna Matata!
Cheyenne, Wyoming U.S.A.
"As to the floppy port, I don't know. I haven't looked up the xfer speed
of these things. Your probably right though."
If it could go faster, we wouldn't need special 1/2 speed HD floppies for
the Amiga.
I'm aware of the serial differences, but that has nothing to do with tape
backups. I was comparing the Amiga ports only to the IBM parallel port.
-Chris
Thanks for the information about not being able to use the tapes. It is
not what I wanted to hear, but it is what I expected to hear. Just out of
idle curiosity, why is a SCSI drive so much more expensive than the
parallel drive (other than that is what the market will bare)? The price
is so much higher, that getting a DAT drive is a real option.
Bill Roberts — Autopilot from Ellettsville, Indiana
SCSI drive circuitry is a bit more complicated…
SCSI is also faster, so yes, it probably is what the market will bare…
Just no this market 🙁
Bob Comer — Hakuna Matata!
Cheyenne, Wyoming U.S.A.