usim

It would be great to have support for a tape drive.

The tape drive used on the CADR was interfaced using a Western Peripherals TC-131 Controller (see SYS: LMTAPE; TAPE LISP from System 78). The following addresses seem to have been used:

(defvar *TAPE-STATUS-REGISTER* #O772520)
(defvar *TAPE-COMMAND-REGISTER* #O772522)
(defvar *TAPE-MTCMA* #O772526)
(defvar *TAPE-MTBRC* #O772524)

System 98 and 99 also use this register set, and it seems from a quick glance that the same type of controller is used.

The following document exist at Bitsavers on the TC-131:

• Hardware Manual
• Logic Manual (Rev. A)
• Logic Manual (Rev. B)

System 99 added support for the (Ciprico?) Tapemaster.

From SYS: TAPE; NEW; WEUNIT LISP (System 99):

;;; Flavors defined in other files:
;;; WEUNIT: WESPERCO-UNIT (used on the CADR, Unibus)
;;; TMUNIT: TAPEMASTER-UNIT (used on the Lambda, multibus)
;;; RMUNIT: RM-UNIT (remote protocol, seems to be CHAOS-independent)

BV is working on this.

BV implemented TAPE suppor via Chaosnet. One needs the new TAPE subsystem though. Closing.