> 
> Ick!
> The correct way ought to be able to read archives from a tape (remember
> what tar stands for?) as well as from disk and net.
> Having tapes pretend to be disks are both inefficient from a speed and
> capacity point of view, as well as being a good way to have tapes die
> prematurely.
> 
Well, maybe, but for some reason I find it attractive to fix the 
filesystem-on-tape code anyway. Both you and me have been running 
filesystems on tape and know that it works well on the normal vax
tapestations, even though TK50 may not be the best one for it.

I think the nicest tape station for that usage I have been close to
is the TU78; it was actually quite fast and stored almost as much
data as a RP06. Unfortunately the code for it got rotten after 4.3BSD.

-- Ragge