Cart drives for XL{4|12}00

[miller@GEM.cam.nist.gov (Bruce R. Miller)]

We're looking to buy a tape drive for our XL1200 -- we initially
thought we'ld be able to use the BIG cart's on our 36xx's, but
alas... We will primarily use it to load dist.software, but
will use it to backup occasionally too.

I know that the `known' in this  is Apple's tape drive, and that's  what
we were going  to go  with, but  somebody showed  me a  review of backup
drives for Macintoshes (references on demand). They gave high marks to a
"Tecmar QT MAC-80". It's apparently 10x as fast as apples.

But, "Does it Work with a XL1200?".  I have reasonable faith that the XL
has a good implementation of the SCSI.  I did have bad luck trying to
connect a Jasmine tape drive to it though. On the other hand, it turns
out that Jasmine has (or had, see Ch.XI) a notorious reputation for
producing non-scsi SCSI devices...  

So, the question is: Does anybody have a Tecmar QT MAC-80 and know if it
works with XL400 or XL1200?  Or do  they have any other opinions on  the
likelihood of it working?  I guess the issue is two-fold:  1) whether  a
device conforms to the hardware part of SCSI, and 2) whether it responds
correctly to Symbolics tape-drive-driver software.

Thanks;


bruce
miller@cam.nist.gov