CCI Concurrent systems support most tape drives using the guidelines described below. Your tape drives must be able to use single-DMA mode. Check to be sure that the interrupt you have chosen for the tape controller is unique and not used by any other device in the system (eg., if you are using interrupt 3, that you do not also have a COM2 in your system). Finally, check to be sure that the I/O port used by the tape controller does not conflict with the I/O port used by any other device in the system. Tape software typically uses DMA and therefore needs to use aligned memory (and in V3.04 and earlier, unbanked memory, so that it is not banked out of context, see note below). In addition, idle detection is not necessary (and may cause problems). With V3.05, you can PIFED your tape drive software for ALIGN=Yes and IDLE=NO. With V3.04 and earlier, use the TAPEBU.COM program; it is a modified version of the shell, created during installation, and located in your CDOS subdirectory. TAPEBU.COM is PIFED'd for:

 

MIN MEMORY = 512 (Reduce this if your software needs less)

ALIGN = Y

BANKED MEMORY = N

IDLE = N  

When using TAPEBU.COM, do not PIFED your tape drive software; since it would be invoked under TAPEBU.COM, its PIFED parameters will be ignored. Use the following to invoke TAPEBU.COM:

 

TAPEBU.COM /C filename

 

where filename is the name of the tape drive software you need to execute. The /C parameter will cause TAPEBU to automatically exit when you exit from the tape drive software. Remember, TAPEBU.COM is for use with V3.04 and earlier only.

Depending on your tape drive and the interrupt it is using, you may need to also use one or more FEATURE settings. If so, create a batch file to invoke your tape drive software (with V3.05 and later) or TAPEBU.COM (with V3.04 and earlier)and turn the features you are using ON before invoking the tape software or TAPEBU.COM and turn them OFF in the next line in the batch file (which will be executed after the backup is complete).

If you are using V3.04 or earlier, and your tape drive is using Interrupt 2, 5 , or 7, you need to use FEATURE 15 2 before doing the backup. Use FEATURE 15 0 after the backup is done. This is NOT necessary in V3.05 or later. Finally, if your tape software cannot tolerate many interruptions by the system time clock, we can minimize that effect with a command:

 

FEATURE 6 10

This feature essentially "turns off" all other processes in the system. After the backup is finished, normal clock updates can be started and the clock resynchronized with the FEATURE 6 0.

Note: Under V3.04 and earlier, to find the maximum available non- banked memory on your system for use with you tape software, you can copy the program BWI.COM to NBWI.COM then use PIFED to set NBWI.COM for 'Runs in Banked Memory=N'. Then execute NBWI.COM to see the free non-banked memory available. Be sure to exit all programs before running NBWI.COM. The amount of memory returned by NBWI.COM must be equal to or less than the amount of memory needed by your tape software or TAPEBU.COM, if you are running that.