"Rob Turk" writes:
For Exabyte drives, for 8200's no mods were needed. The firmware (32KB of
code on an 8051 CPU) did not require any changes to space to the next
filemark after EOD. Not enought smarts to detect EOD while spacing ;-) For
all other 85xx drives a standard EE-image implementing 'directory support'
allowed you to do the same thing. No tricks, no switching power, just using
the features of the drive.

Thanks, that helps. How is the situation for current Exabyte/Ecrix drives?

Also, suppose you have an M3 or VXA2 cartridge and cut the tape
somewhere in the middle with a scissors. Can you get back (most of)
the data from both pieces without having to go too crazy with special
programming? Is there enough redundancy to not lose data around where
the cut is? I figure you can't splice the tape, but maybe you can
spool each piece onto another cartridge or something.