The information contained herein is solely for the use and benefit 
of EXABYTE customers.  It is not intended for distribution beyond 
the internal use of our customers.


EXB-8700 FIRMWARE CHANGE LIST AND CODE ENHANCEMENTS


8QC-0050-8QC-0052

 - Fixed a problem in which the drive was reporting a failure of a SPACE or LOCATE command even though the command was successful.  In order for the failure to occur, many unusual conditions needed to be met, including the failure of the previous SPACE or LOCATE command.

 - Fixed a problem with SCSI bus performance problem reported on 8505.  No 8700 customers had complained but the potential exists so the fix has been ported to 8700 from 8505.

 - Fixed a problem during read when a filemark and an illegal length indication (ILI) are encountered at the same time.  This is also a problem that was reported on 8505 and the fix was moved into the 8700 firmware.


8QC-0046 through 8QC-0050

 - Fixed a bug that could cause an ERASE command issued on a partitioned tape in partition 1 to erase too far and erase part of partition 0.

 - Fixed a hang in the SEND DIAGNOSTICS command that could occur after a write with tests 101 and 111.

 - Improved the calibration for the EOT/BOT sensors.

 - Improved the tape format  recognition algorithm so that tapes would not be typed as 8200 in noisy environments.

 - Improved analog tape mark detection for spacing on 8200 format tapes.  


8QC-0039 through 8QC-0046

 - Fixed a FSC 9B that could occur when reformatting a partitioned 
   tape to an 8500 format tape.

 - Fixed SEND DIAGNOSTIC tests 101 and 111 that were not properly
   writing end of data marks.

 - Improved the read error recovery by slowing down the tape even
   further in slow motion mode.

 - Fixed a FSC 8C that could occur if a SPACE or LOCATE command 
   is issued immediately after the drive positions after a file mark or set
   mark and there is no data in the buffer following the file mark or set mark.

 - Fixed a hang if a REWIND is issued in partition 1 and the heads are 
   clogged so that no search fields are seen and the drive runs into the 
   beginning of the tape.

 - Fixed a bug which could cause the READ POSITION command to
   report the wrong position after a media error.

 - Fixed a FSC AB that could occur when using a cleaning tape.

 - Improved the EOT/BOT sensor calibration routine to improve the
   detection of cloth cleaning tapes.

 - Improved drum servo to reduce number of tracking retries.
