[TUHS] why does tar have the tape device hard coded into it and why is it mt1 instead of mt0

Doug McIlroy doug at cs.dartmouth.edu
Sat Dec 12 12:09:03 AEST 2015


> I have no memory of why Ken used mt1 not mt0.   Doug may know.

I don't know either. Come to think of it, I can't remember ever
using tar without option -f. Direct machine-to-machine trasfer,
e.g. by uucp, took a lot of business away from magtape soon
after tar was introduced. Incidentally, I think tar was written
by Chuck Haley or Greg Chesson, not Ken.

Doug



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