On Mon, 11 Jun 2001, Brian Hechinger wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 08:08:50AM -0700, Chuck McManis wrote:

> > Tk50 tapes, the TZ30 is, IMHO, a bit more reliable than the generic TK50.
> > It is also a SCSI version rather than the TK50 bus version. I use one in an
> > expansion box when I really need to write a TK50 tape.
>
> what's the SCSI like, the last time i asked about TZ30 people said
> that it's SCSI is wired funny.  any more info on that? i wouldn't mind
> putting mine on a non-DEC box, althout if need be i can always hang it
> off of one of my DS5000 boxes.
>
> let me know!! i'd love to have that thing running.  between that and
> the two TK50 drives i have (one hooked to a TK50 controller in my
> 4000/400, one of the SCSI models in the external case hooked to my
> SPARCstation-LX) i should never be without the ability to read/write
> TK50 tapes. :)

Well if you actually have a TZ30 and are wondering if it'll work on a
vanilla SCSI bus (I can't imagine it wouldn't really?), then why not just
hook it up and try it?

There's a TK50Z used on the VAXstation 2000 which is said to be slightly
odd wrt the flavor of SCSI it uses.  Still, in the case of TK50s, I'm not
entirely sure what to believe concerning the VAXstation 2000 SCSI support
and the TK50Z-FA and TK50Z-GA tape drives.  Both of these use the original
style TK50 drives with an adapter board slapped onto them to talk SCSI.
The TZ30 actualy sounds kind of nice.  I wouldn't mind having one myself.
:-)

Many of the Ultrix and VMS people say that the VAXstation 2000's SCSI
isn't actually real SCSI and only supports a specific model of DEC
crippled TK50Z tape drive.  In reality it is actually a genuine SCSI
controller.  With the NetBSD/vax 1.4.1 release, I was able to hook-up a
SCSI disk drive to the system, create a filesystem on it, and install
NetBSD/vax without problems (except that it was slow PIO mode SCSI at the
time of the 1.4.1 release.) The VS2000 firmware doesn't support the disk
drive as a *bootable* device, though someone has made mods to the original
ROM images to allow SCSI disk booting.

I've also had some interesting discussions with VAX hardware resellers
when they asked me why I'd be interested in things like VAXstation
3100/M76s and VAXstation 4000/60s.  When I mentioned my intentions to run
Unix (NetBSD) on them and to use them for servers, they insisted that Unix
would run on these boxes because these particular models only support VMS.
They also told me that I wouldn't be able to run them as multi-user
systems because the hardware didn't allow it.

I suppose if you see the whole world through the tinted lenses of DEC
products and their scheme of selling crippled licenses for workstation
class machines.  If I tried explaining to them otherwise they just sort
of looked at me like some wet-behind-the-ears kid.  Of course this was
back in the 1.3 days when VAXstation 3100 support was still very new.
I'd imagine that any clueful resellers have found NetBSD/vax enthusiasts
as a great segment to market their old VAX systems.

-brian.