In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Mike Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Interesting. I've never encountered a tape device to which the buffer
> cache was applicable, except for the mythical SunOS swap-to-tape story,
Back in the days when Unix ran on PDP-11s you could actually put a
filesystem on a tape and mount it -- if you were insane enough to sit
there and wait for it. The block devices were intended for that.
> and the 'r' has always been "rewind" for as long as I can remember.
I think you're mistaken. Unix tape devices traditionally rewound by
default on their last close. The non-rewind device has historically
had an "n" in front of it (when it existed at all). E.g., /dev/rmt0
was a character device which rewound on last close, while /dev/nrmt0
was a character device which did not rewind on last close. There was
also a /dev/mt0 which was a block device that rewound on last close,
and a /dev/nmt0 which ... well, you get the idea.
John
--
John Polstra [EMAIL PROTECTED]
John D. Polstra & Co., Inc. Seattle, Washington USA
"Disappointment is a good sign of basic intelligence." -- Chögyam Trungpa
To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
