Tested drives¶
This page lists the floppy-interface tape drives Tapewyrm has a profile for,
which of them have been on the bench, and what each one reads. Pick the drive
profile here, then pass it to tw with --profile. How profiles are written
and resolved is in Drive profiles.
Most ftape supported drives should work
if ftape supported your drive, it's probably going to work here either with some minor tweaking of a profile.
Irwin drives
Most Irwin AccuTrack (A120, etc.) drives do not speak QIC-117 and are not supported by Tapewyrm. If you have backups built with irwin-specific formatting, we suggest using a real tape controller in a period machine.
Drive table¶
| Drive | Profile | Status | Formats | Data rates seen | Page |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HP/Colorado Jumbo 350 | colorado |
Tested: reads QIC-80 tapes end to end | QIC-80 (QIC-40 untested) | 500 kbit/s | Colorado Jumbo 350 |
| HP/Colorado 1400 | colorado.1400 |
Tested: commands and reports work; has not referenced a tape | QIC-3010 (drive class); QIC-80 refused on the bench | 1 Mbit/s reported | Colorado 1400 |
| TEAC FT-3010 | teac |
Tested: commands, reports and load point work; references a QIC-3010 tape | QIC-80, QIC-3010 | 500 kbit/s | TEAC FT-3010 |
| Conner / Archive | conner |
Untested placeholder | QIC-80 (assumed) | Unknown | Conner and Iomega |
| Iomega Ditto | iomega |
Untested placeholder | QIC-80, QIC-3010 (assumed) | Unknown | Conner and Iomega |
| Irwin A120/2040 | None | Does not answer QIC-117 | Not QIC-80: Irwin's own recording | None | Conner and Iomega |
"Formats" is what the drive is built for. "Data rates seen" is what Report Drive Configuration returned on the bench, which can change with the cartridge inserted (QIC-117 Rev J Table 2c).
Wake-up profiles¶
Some profiles describe a wake-up method rather than a drive. They come from
the Linux ftape driver's vendor table, which sent these sequences to every
drive it probed.
| Profile | Wake sequence | Status |
|---|---|---|
default |
None: ask for status. Answers if the drive is already listening. | Built in. |
generic |
None. QIC-117 Rev J Table 1 nominal timings. The base other profiles inherit. | Spec values. |
colorado |
Phantom Select (46) with unit 0, then Enter Primary Mode (30). | Bench-verified on the Jumbo 350, the 1400 and the FT-3010. |
mountain |
Soft Select (23) and its 20-pulse train. ftape lists it for Conner, Archive, Summit, COREtape, ComByte and PERTEC drives. | Never run on hardware. |
insight |
Wait 100 ms, then assert drive select and motor-on. ftape lists it for Irwin/Insight 80 and early Iomega drives. | Never run on hardware. |
auto |
Tries default, colorado, mountain, insight in that order and keeps the first that answers. |
Built in. |
Use --profile auto with an unknown drive, then switch to the named profile
once you know what answered.
Identify a drive¶
Run tw drive status to read the drive's reports. The fields that identify a
drive are:
| Report | QIC-117 command | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor ID | 32 | Make (bits 6–15) and model (bits 0–5). Some older drives report a whole-word legacy ID. |
| ROM version | 9 | Firmware revision (bits 0–6) and a beta flag (bit 7). |
| Drive configuration | 8 | Current data rate (bits 3–4), extra-length tape (bit 6), QIC-80 mode (bit 7). |
| Tape status | 33 | Recording format and tape type of the inserted cartridge. Not every drive supports it. |
The field layouts are in QIC-117 command interface.