[Info-vax] The (now lost) future of Alpha.

[already5chosen at yahoo.com]

On Sunday, August 19, 2018 at 12:33:18 AM UTC+3, Paul Sture wrote:
> On 2018-08-07, Dave Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
> > On 8/6/2018 11:21 AM, Bob Koehler wrote:
> >> In article <pk7pe6$c30$1 at gioia.aioe.org>, Chris <xxx.syseng.yyy at gfsys.co.uk> writes:
> >>>
> >>> One of the reasons why unix and C became so popular in the early days
> >>> is because the C library provides platform independent access to i/o,
> >>> storage and a shed load of other functions. If I write a c program for
> >>> any flavour of unix, or linux and don't try to be too clever, it will
> >>> almost always compile and run on anything else.
> >>
> >>     You obvioulsy haven't done enough with ioctl().  Or am I being "too
> >>     clever"?
> >>
> >>     Years ago, I found I had to get into ioctl() just to identify the contents
> >>     of a magtape.
> >>
> >
> > Basic always worked well with magtape.
> 
> COBOL does too, and VMS COBOL can understand EBCDIC too.
> 
> > Worthless capability now.  What's a magtape?
> 
> Tape is not dead yet:
> 
> "Reel talk: You know what's safely offline? Tape. Data protection outfit Veeam inks deal with Quantum":
> 
> <https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/08/14/veeam_gets_taped_up_by_quantum_in_antiransomware_deal/>
> 
> 
> -- 
> The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the
> intelligent are full of doubt.                 -- Bertrand Russell

Tapes are not dead as backup media. Because types are still a little cheaper per GB than reliable HDs. And significantly lighter.
Tapes are long dead for any other use.
So, the only program that has to know tape IO control codes is your backup program. But you likely wouldn't want to write it by yourself.