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Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.misc:1163 comp.os.386bsd.questions:5712 comp.os.386bsd.bugs:1563 Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.386bsd.questions,comp.os.386bsd.bugs Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uwm.edu!daffy!uwvax!cs.wisc.edu!kaxiras From: kaxiras@falcons.cs.wisc.edu (Stefanos Kaxiras) Subject: A case for QIC-80 Message-ID: <kaxiras.749938489@cs.wisc.edu> Summary: QIC-80 is useful Keywords: QIC-80 Sender: news@cs.wisc.edu (The News) Organization: U of Wisconsin Madison - Computer Sciences Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1993 20:14:49 GMT Lines: 49 Hello, I've read some posts describing the problems associated with QIC-80 device drivers. As I understand such a driver would take up most CPU cycles because of timing constraints. It's going to be worthless in network back up. Tar is going to suffer because of no I/O and computation overlap ... etc. etc. OK. Fine. People who want to do this stuff can spend $$$ to buy SCSI controllers and drives. A point that was not taken into consideration is that QIC-80 minicartridges are a *great* distribution medium. I want to get FreeBSD. What are my options : 1) Ftp it, buy a hundred floppies, download it on them, move them on my PC and install it. Or buy the distribution on floppies and install it. 2) Spend $$$ buy a SCSI controller and a SCSI tape drive or a CD-ROM drive spend some more $$$ and get the tape or CD-ROM. I can't do (2)-no money- and it's a big hassle to do (1). Who wants a system in 100 diskettes ? I believe that both options inhibit people of getting FreeBSD So what I argue for is this : Forget for the moment writing a driver that will make a QIC-80 tape drive behave like any other SCSI tape drive. Just write up something that can be used to install BSD -and other software -from QIC-80 minicatridges. Instead of using the floppy drive for the installation use the tape drive connected to the floppy drive controller ! Even if the tape drive behaves exactly like the floppy drive it's pretty useful! Later on we can tackle the problem of doing more with the QIC-80 drives. I believe that many people woule be happy to be able to install FreeBSD from QIC-80 tapes. This would lead to a wider acceptance of FreeBSD. Thanks for reading, Stefanos.