DTI-201 PBIF

Product Highlights

PCI Bus Interface for High Speed Digital Tape Recorders

The CALCULEX DTI-201 PCI Bus Interface (PBIF) interfaces state-of-the-art PC-compatible computers to high-speed digital tape recorders such as the Ampex DCRsi, and Metrum-Datatape LP400.  The PBIF installs into a 32-bit PCI bus slot of a PC-compatible computer and connects to the tape drive data connectors via a single rear-panel connector.  The PC must also be connected to the tape drive control port via a PC RS-232 or RS-422 serial adapter.
The PBIF supports tape drive data transfer rates of up to 64 megabytes per second (sustained) during both record and playback operation.  Data is transferred between PC memory and the PBIF at rates up to 133 megabytes per second (burst) without processor intervention.  The CPU is involved in data transfers only to the extent necessary to initialize the DMA controller.
The PBIF supports the “plug and play” concept.  No setting of jumpers or DIP switches is required during installation.
Software supplied with the PBIF includes drivers, installation programs, and test utilities.  The precise software complement is dependent on the target platform.  For example, a virtual device driver (VxD), a dynamic link library (DLL) and a sample application (PBIF Utility), is provided for Microsoft Windows platforms.
The PBIF Utility controls operation of the tape drive via one of the PC serial ports and controls the PBIF hardware via the PCI bus.  The PBIF Utility allows the operator to transfer data between the tape drive and PC disk files.  Built-in-tests allow the PBIF Utility to perform complete functional testing of the PBIF hardware, the tape drive and the cabling.  Utility source code is provided, making it useful as a programming example.

Installation Software
The software described on this page is that supplied for Microsoft Windows platforms.
The installation software loads the device driver and dynamic link library onto the system hard drive, modifies the Windows initialization file so that Windows will load the device driver at startup, installs the libraries in the Windows system directory, and installs the PBIF Utility program.

Device Driver
The device driver provides functions to initialize the device driver, initialize the hardware, allocate transfer buffers, install the interrupt handler, initiate data buffer transfer, notify application upon buffer transfer completion, provide access to data transfer buffers, disable the hardware, and handle the “plug-and-play” features of the PBIF.

PBIF Library
To simplify development of applications software for the PBIF, CALCULEX provides a PBIF class library.  The interface to the device driver is hidden by the library, which provides a convenient programming interface.  The library provides two basic classes of functions: functions to control the tape drive, and functions to control the PBIF.  The basic functions are listed below.

PBIF Utility
The PBIF Utility demonstrates the functionality of the PBIF hardware and provides a programming example for users who intend to write their own applications software. The utility is supplied in executable form as well as source code, so it is useful for basic tape transfer operations, and as an example of library interfacing. The utility includes a tape drive control package which supports the following commands: