On Fri, 13 Nov 1998, Simon J. Gerraty wrote:

: Just as there is a reserved bit in the tape device minor number to
: control rewind/norewind, it would be very handy to have a bit that
: controls whether compression is enabled or not.

What's wrong with "mt compress 1"/"mt compress 0"?

The problem, of course, now lies in the fact that mt already has this
capability, and what would mt's actions mean on a device which has a
"compression enabled" bit as opposed to a "compression disabled" bit?

-- 
-- Todd Vierling (Personal tv@pobox.com; Bus. todd_vierling@xn.xerox.com)