xref: /original-bsd/share/man/man4/man4.hp300/st.4 (revision 3705696b)
1.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1993
2.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
3.\"
4.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
5.\" the Systems Programming Group of the University of Utah Computer
6.\" Science Department.
7.\"
8.\" %sccs.include.redist.man%
9.\"
10.\"     @(#)st.4	8.1 (Berkeley) 06/09/93
11.\"
12.Dd
13.Dt ST 4 hp300
14.Os
15.Sh NAME
16.Nm \&st
17.Nd
18.Tn CCS SCSI
19tape driver
20.Sh SYNOPSIS
21.Cd "tape st0 at scsi? slave ?"
22.Sh DESCRIPTION
23The
24.Nm \&st
25driver was written especially to support the Exabyte
26.Tn EXB-8200 8MM
27Cartridge
28Tape Subsystem.  It has several extensions specific to the Exabyte,
29but should support other tape drives as long has they follow
30the
31.Tn ANSI SCSI-I
32specification.  Besides extensive use with
33an Exabyte, the driver has been tested with an
34Archive
35.Tn QIC-24
36tape drive.
37The
38.Nm \&st
39tape interface provides a standard tape drive interface
40as described in
41.Xr mtio 4
42with the following exceptions:
43.Bl -enum
44.It
45Density is dependent on device type.  Current Exabyte hardware has
46only one density. The
47.Tn EXB-8500
48drive, when released, will have a high
49density format of
50.Tn 5.6GB .
51On an Archive
52.Tn QIC-24
53drive the driver reads both
54.Tn QIC-11
55and
56.Tn QIC-24
57formats
58but writes only
59.Tn QIC-24 .
60.It
61Only the ``raw'' interface is supported.
62.El
63.Pp
64Special Exabyte Support:
65.Pp
66The
67.Dv MTIOCGET
68.Xr ioctl 2
69call on an Exabyte returns this structure:
70.Bd -literal
71struct	mtget {
72	short mt_type;   /* type of magtape device */
73	short mt_dsreg;  /* sc_flags */
74	short mt_erreg;  /* high 8 bytes error status */
75	/* low  8 bytes percentage of Rewrites
76	if writing, ECC errors if reading */
77	short mt_resid;  /* Mbyte until end of tape */
78};
79.Ed
80.Pp
81Bit 4 in the minor device number is used
82to select long filemarks or short filemarks. A long filemark occupies
832.12 MBytes of space on the tape, while a short filemark occupies 488 KBytes.
84A long filemark includes an erase gap while the short filemark does not.
85The tape can be positioned on the
86.Tn BOT
87side of a long filemark allowing
88data to be appended with a write operation.  Since the short filemark does not
89contain an erase gap which would allow writing it is considered to be
90non-erasable.  If either type of filemark is followed by blank tape,
91data may be appended on its
92.Tn EOT
93side.
94.Pp
95Bit 5 in the minor device number selects fixed block mode with a block
96size of 1K.  Variable length records are the default if bit 5 is not
97set.
98.Pp
99For unit 0 here are the effects of minor device bits 2,3,4,5. For other
100units add the
101.Em unit#
102to each of the device names.
103.Bl -column norewind density filemarks -offset indent
104.Em norewind	high	short	fixed
105.Em 	density	filemarks	block mode
106rst0
107nrst0	X
108rst8		X
109nrst8	X	X
110rst16			X
111nrst16	X		X
112rst24		X	X
113nrst24	X	X	X
114rst32				X
115nrst32	X			X
116rst40		X		X
117nrst40	X	X		X
118rst48			X	X
119nrst48	X		X	X
120rst56		X	X	X
121nrst56	X	X	X	X
122.El
123.Sh SEE ALSO
124.Xr mt 1 ,
125.Xr tar 1 ,
126.Xr mtio 4 ,
127.Rs
128.%T EXB-8200 8MM Cartridge Tape Subsystem Interface User Manual.
129.Re
130.Sh BUGS
131The
132.Tn HP
13398268
134.Tn SCSI
135controller hardware can not do odd length
136.Tn DMA
137transfers.  If odd length
138.Tn DMA I/O
139is requested the driver will use the
140"Program Transfer Mode" of the Fujitsu
141.Tn MB87030
142chip. Read requests are
143normally even length for which a
144.Tn DMA
145transfer is used. If, however, the
146driver detects that a odd length read has happened (when a even length
147was requested) it will issue the
148.Dv EIO
149error and the last byte of the read
150data will be 0x00. Odd length read requests must match the size of the
151requested data block on tape.
152.Pp
153The following only applies when using long filemarks. Short filemarks can
154not be overwritten.
155.Bd -filled -offset 4n
156Due to the helical scan and the erase mechanism, there is a writing
157limitation on Exabyte drives.
158.Dq Li tar r
159or
160.Dq Li tar u
161will not work
162.Pf ( Dq Li tar c
163is ok).  One can only start writing at  1) beginning of tape, 2) on the
164end of what was last written, 3) "front" side of a regular (long) filemark.
165Say you have a tape with 3 tar files on it, want to save the first
166file, and want to begin writing over the 2nd file.
167.Pp
168On a normal 1/4" or 1/2" drive you would do:
169.Pp
170.Li "mt fsf 1; tar cf /dev/nrst0 ..."
171.Pp
172but for an Exabyte you need to do:
173.Pp
174.Li "mt fsf 1; mt bsf 1; mt weof 1; tar cf /dev/nrst0 ..."
175.Pp
176The regular long filemark consists of an erased zone 3.8" long
177(needed to begin a write).  In this case, the first filemark is
178rewritten in place, which creates an erased zone
179.Em after
180it, clearing the
181way to write more on the tape.  The erase head is not helical.
182.Pp
183One can position a tape to the end of what was last written by reading
184until a
185.Tn \*qBLANK CHECK\*q
186error is returned.  Writing can be started at this
187point.  (This applies to both long and short filemarks.)  The tape does
188not become positioned somewhere down the "erased" area as does a
189conventional magtape.  One can issue multiple reads at the
190.Tn \*qBLANK CHECK\*q
191error, but the Exabyte stays positioned at the beginning of the
192blank area, ready to accept write commands.  File skip operations do
193not stop at blank tape and will run into old data or run to the end of
194the tape, so you have to be careful not to
195.Dq Li mt fsf too_many .
196.Ed
197.Pp
198Archive support gets confused if asked to moved more filemarks than there are
199on the tape.
200.Pp
201This man page needs some work.  Some of these are not really bugs,
202just unavoidable consequences of the hardware.
203