Subject: CCL:Transfering files between IBM and SGI

From: [email-masked] (Dr. David N. Haney)
Date: Fri, 12 May 1995 13:16:12 -0700 (PDT)

Jeff Nauss writes:

"..I am trying to transfer files between an IBM R/S 6000 and an SGI 4D/35
using a 150 MB tape.  I will eventually want to transfer data back and.."

A key difference between SGI tar and everyone else's (it seems) tar is that
the standard SGI device (/dev/tape) is byte swapped.  So if you read an
IBM tape on the SGI you must use something to unswap the bytes.  Try
using /dev/tapens.  You might also be able to use this device when writing
a tape to be read on the IBM.

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From: "Peter Shenkin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 May 1995 17:12:40 -0400

On May 12,  1:16pm, Dr. David N. Haney wrote:
> Subject: CCL:Transfering files between IBM and SGI

> the standard SGI device (/dev/tape) is byte swapped.  

No; this is only if /dev/tape is a QIC drive, as Jeff's indeed is.  But
if /dev/tape is anything else, such as DAT, SGI's tar doesn't swap bytes.

To be precise (and after all, we are scientists, aren't we?), SGI's tar 
has never swapped bytes;  but their QIC controller always has, and still
does, in the name of back-compatibility.

So unless you, like Jeff, have a QIC (cartridge) drive, you can forget
this whole business.

	-P.

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