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- From: Goncal Badenes <badenes@imec.be>
- Subject: Re: IBM/Tandberg TDC3600/250Mb SCSI Tape Drives
-
- Return-Path: <badenes@imec.be>
-
- Hi!
-
- Here is the information I have on the Tandberg 3600...
-
- In order to configure the drive you have to send an SCSI mode select (15h)
- command to it. Its format is:
-
- Byte | bit 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
- --------+-------------------------------------------------------------------
- 00 | 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1
- 01 | LUN | Reserved
- 02 | Reserved
- 03 | Reserved
- 04 | Length of parameter list
- 05 | X | SMP | Reserved | Flag | Link
-
- Following that, you have to send the parameter list, which consists of a
- four-byte header followed by one Block Descriptor Page (8 bytes) and 12
- bytes of additional Mode Select Parameters (Vendor Unique Parameters).
- A total of 24 bytes.
-
- The Parameter list is specified as follows:
-
- Byte | bit 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
- --------+-------------------------------------------------------------------
- 00 | 00
- 01 | 00
- 02 | 00 | BM | 00
- 03 | Block Descriptor Length (=08)
-
- Block Descriptor:
-
- Byte | bit 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
- --------+-------------------------------------------------------------------
- 00 | Density Code
- 01 | 00
- 02 | 00
- 03 | 00
- 04 | 00
- 05 | 00
- 06 | Block Size MSB (=02)
- 07 | Block Size LSB (=00)
-
- Vendor Unique Parameters:
-
- Byte | bit 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
- --------+-------------------------------------------------------------------
- 00 | Page Code (=00)
- 01 | Write Threshold
- 02 | Read Threshold
- 03 | Buffer Size
- 04 | Forced Streaming Count (MSB)
- 05 | Forced Streaming Count (LSB)
- 06 | Bus Threshold
- 07 | Copy Threshold
- 08 | Normal Sense Threshold
- 09 | Copy Sense Allocation
- 10 | Load Function
- 11 | Power-Up Auto Load/Retension Delay
-
-
-
- Now, to the meaning of some of these things:
-
- * If the SMP bit (byte 05, Mode select command) is set, the selected
- mode will be permanent, i.e. the drive will remember the configuration
- even if you power it down.
-
- * Density code (default: 0): specifies the tape format that should be
- used when writing the tape.
-
- Format Code
- QIC-120 0F
- QIC-150 10
-
- This means that you can really write your good old QIC-120 tapes
- (DC-600A), if you send the appropriate mode select command to the drive
- before trying to write it.
-
- * Load Function (default: 0): Specifies if the drive shall perform Auto
- Load or Auto Retension after insertion of a cartridge. The functions
- are:
-
- Auto Load: 00
- Auto Retension: 01
-
- * Power-up auto-load/auto-retension delay: The delay that should be
- applied before an auto-load or auto-retension is started after Power-Up
- (in 100ms increments).
-
-
- That was the raw information. Now I can give you some examples which
- worked in my particular setup. I recently upgraded the drive to SCSI-2
- firmware, and now it works even better :)
-
- The program I use for communicating with the drive is tape, wich you can
- find in the gtak212b package for os/2 (if you want it, you will find it
- in ftp-os2.cdrom.com, somewhere in /pub/os2/2_x/...).
-
- The first thing you should do is to issue a mode sense to the tape, and
- save the data it returns as a backup information. You never now what you
- could screw... (if you don't set the SMP bit, anything should be fixed
- with a power cycle, hopefully). The format of the data returned from a
- mode sense command is equivalent to that of the mode select, whith the
- execption of bytes 00 and 01 of the header, which have to be set to 0 in
- the mode select command.
-
- if you are using the gtak212b package:
-
- tape CMD cdb=1A,0,0,0,18,0;rlen=24;rfile=mode.dat
-
- sends a mode sense command and saves in the file mode.dat the (binary)
- information of your current tape setup.
-
- In order to send a mode setup to the drive you can do:
-
- tape CMD cdb=15,0,0,0,0c,0 wdata=0,0,10,8,f,0,0,0,0,0,2,0
-
- This command just sets the density code to 0F, thus allowing you to
- write DC600 tapes.
-
- To reset the tape density to the default value, I send a
-
- tape CMD cdb=15,0,0,0,0c,0 wdata=0,0,10,8,0,0,0,0,0,0,2,0
-
- command.
-
- If I would ever need to reset the tape to the factory values (note that
- these were the factory values from *my* tape, they could differ in your
- case), I would send the following command:
-
- tape cdb=15,0,0,0,18,0 wdata=0,0,10,8,0,0,0,0,0,0,2,0,0,2,2,70,0,0,8,0,0,0,1,64
-
- And the command I sent to avoid (permanently) auto-retensioning was:
-
- tape cdb=15,0,0,0,18,40
- wdata=0,0,10,8,0,0,0,0,0,0,2,0,0,2,2,70,0,0,8,0,0,0,0,64
-
- I hope this will be of some help to all of you. Please note that you
- should send these commands when no other application is trying to access
- the SCSI bus...
-
- I whish you lots of fun with your tape drive!
-
- Later,
-
- Goncal
-
- --
- Goncal Badenes Tel: +32 16 281529
- IMEC - ASP/MP Division Fax: +32 16 281214
- Kapeldreef 75 e-mail: badenes@imec.be
- B-3001 Leuven (Belgium) goncal@cnm.es
-