Hi,

> Is there a list of what tape drives will work with NetBSD, or will any
> SCSI tape drive be usable?

Most SCSI tape drives will just show up as an st* device. I have several -
VTX, 4mm 2 gig, 4mm 4 gig; they all just work. Some ATA tpe drives are a
little weird, though.

> I have an old 2 gig tape drive (don't recall model off the top of my
> head, its at work, I'm at home), and I'm thinking of using it as a backup
> drive for one of my mac68k setups. I was just wondering how I go about
> finding out if it is usable.

Plug it in!

> Also, is there anywhere with a tutorial or tips on setting up a drive, or
> should I just search for info under general *nix topics.

Just set the SCSI ID, make sure termination is proper (but you didn't need
us to tell you that). NetBSD will show an st device, similar to this, in
dmesg:

st0 at scsibus0 target 1 lun 0: <ARCHIVE, Python 28388-XXX, 5.AC> SCSI2
1/sequential removable
st0: density code 36, 512-byte blocks, write-enabled
st0: sync (248.0ns offset 15), 8-bit (4.032MB/s) transfers

(This is in a Quadra 630 type machine.)

> And along the same lines, can I use a CD-RW drive with NetBSD for doing
> scheduled backups? I also have an old 2x/2x/4x CD-RW drive that I could
> stick in another mac68k box of mine if it will let me do backups to it.
> (I don't care about the rewrite abilities, as long as I can write CD-R's
> I'd be happy)

Again, most of them just work. Especially SCSI; there seem to be more
variants in IDE CD writers, in my experience, but I've never come across a
SCSI writer that didn't work as-is.

John Klos
Sixgirls Computing Labs