SCO Xenix and Irwin Tape Drives

SCO Xenix fully supports both the old 20MB Irwin tape drive used on the XEN-i XD45T, and the new 40MB drive available on the Qi series. To install the tape driver in the operating system, run the Xenix command - 'mkdev tape' and select the 'mini-cartridge' option. Once installation is complete, reboot the system - the device name for the tape is - '/dev/rctmini'.

If you are upgrading a XEN-i XD45T from Apricot Xenix to SCO Xenix 286, you will have to bulk erase and reformat the tape cartridges - tapes written under the old system MAY NOT be read under the new one. Also, it will be necessary to re-jumper the Irwin tape drive select, so that the pins closest to the power cable connector are jumpered (drive select 1). The 'format' program distributed with SCO Xenix 286 VR2.2 is faulty - a fix is available form Apricot Unix Support on request.

If you are installing the Irwin tape driver in SCO Xenix on a Qi, the tape drive is instantly usable on rebooting the system. Avoid using the 'format-e' option - this is supposed to allow 40MB DC2000 tapes to be reformatted, but a fault in the software causes tape capacity to be reduced to 20MB. This problem is currently under investigation and you will be informed as soon as there is a fix.

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