TK50 with SCSI

[Mr Ian Primus]

--- silvercreekvalley <silvercreekvalley at yahoo.com>
wrote:

> Sorry if this has been asked before...
> 
> I have a few spare TK50 drives, and wondered if
> these could be interfaced in some way to a regular
> Linux box. 

> I know the PDP's use a special interface card, but
> I seem to recall it was some kind of SCSI variant.

It's a special interface, and you're not going to be
able to build just a simple adapter cable. But, they
DID make a SCSI TK-50. I have one, and I have used it
with Linux. The SCSI TK-50 drive is an external box
with a standard TK-50 mechanism and a special
controller/interface board that controls the drive and
groks SCSI back to the computer. Even then, it's not
the greatest SCSI tape drive interface, but it will
work.

One thing you have to remember to do though, is to
turn on the buffer. The drive doesn't have one.

mt -f /dev/nst0 drvbuffer 1

If you don't do this, the drive will shoeshine for an
hour writing even a small file...

-Ian