CompuServe Thread

ANNOUNCEMENT! For all you users wondering about a reliable tape drive system for the Amiga, this announcement may interest you. I have uploaded a demo of this new product to this forum, and the official product announcement is appended to this message. This project has been in development for the past 18 months and proves to fill a void that many Amiga users have been begging for. I myself did a lot of work on this project as well, so I can answer any specific questions you may have about it's operation and reliablity. Make sure to download the demo and try EVERYTHING out. I think you will like the slick interface and ease of use… we spent a LOT of time on this baby, and it is exciting to see it finally become a reality. Not only will this be a reliable tape backup system, but it will be _very_ economical- i.e. far less expensive to purchase and operate than any SCSI drive. Later I will fill you in on how well the error-correction works on this setup as well. OK- here goes the 'official' announcement…. Progressive Peripherals & Software and M.V.Micro are pleased to announce the release of QICTAPE, an inexpensive tape back-up system. QICTAPE uses the industry standard QIC-40 tape format which offers ultra-reliable operation at a reasonable price. We feel that QICTAPE is the ultimate streaming tape disk archival system available at any price. SYSTEM FEATURES: * Ultra-Reliable Operation * The QIC-40 standard uses Reed-Solomon error correction to offer a hard error rate of approximately 1 in 10,000 back-ups. This means with proper care of your tape drive and tapes you may never experience an uncorrectable error over the life span of this system. * Ease of Use * The Software and hardware have been designed such that setting up the system is simply a matter of plugging in the tape drive and copying the backup software to your system disk. There is no need to modify any system files as is common with SCSI tape drives. QICTAPE will work on ALL Amiga Systems and does NOT require a SCSI interface. * Low Cost * At this time final pricing information is not available to me, however I can attest to low operating costs. QICTAPE uses standard DC2000 Tapes (40MB) which are available at most office supply stores for around $16.00 or DC2000XL tapes (60MB) which are available for a few dollars more. SOFTWARE FEATURES: * Ease of Installation * The only requirements are one library in the libs: drawer and that all of the support files be in the same drawer as the main program. * Supports Any Size or Type of Drive * The only limitation is imposed by available free ram to hold the directory information. QICTAPE supports hard disks, floppies, even shared network devices. So no matter how your system is configured now, you can easily put QICTAPE to immediate use and it will continue to be of use as your system expands. Just think of how many floppies you could free up if you backed up all your floppies and hard disks to tape. I have already made over 250 floppies available for reuse, not to mention the space I have saved. * Advanced File Selection * Select/Deselect by: Less than, equal to, or greater than a given date Files that are archived OR not archived Flexible pattern matching All Entire directory tree Single Directory Single file * Advanced File List Display * All file information is displayed, and for directories the total number of bytes selected within its tree is shown. The most common selection buttons are placed conveniently around the display. The parent directory function is also available by moving the mouse to the far left of the file display area and pressing the left mouse button. * Full Control of Operating Parameters * Full control of file attributes setting on backup/restore. Control of DMA type and buffer size. Full color control. You can even force files from different directories to be restored into the same directory. All Tape utilities and system settings are available at all times. * Full Schedule Control * QICTAPE comes complete with scheduling software that allows automatic operation. You can schedule to have your important files backed-up daily, weekly, or just once. Multiple schedule entries allow complex backup operations to be performed without intervention, each governed by individual parameters and times. Even tape formatting and erasing may be scheduled at times when you are away from your system. For more information please call: Progressive Peripherals & Software: (303) 825-4144 QICTAPE is scheduled to ship mid November. Please see your local dealer for availability or call Progressive. QICTAPE ) 1989,90 Progressive Peripherals & Software + M.V.Micro