JPH0227751B2 - SHUGOKAATORITSUJIKIOKUSOCHI - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Technical Field of the Invention The present invention selects and transfers an arbitrary cartridge from a storage in which a plurality of two-reel cartridges are stored, mounts it on a recording mechanism, and records, reproduces, and erases information. Furthermore, the present invention relates to a collective cartridge storage device that is demounted and stored in a storage.

Prior Art and Problems In this type of device, the magnetic tape cartridge is wound around a core called a spool or hub, so when using this type of device, the magnetic tape cartridge must be mounted on a recording mechanism, and then the beginning of the tape must be mounted. It is necessary to automatically feed and wind it onto the take-up reel of the recording mechanism. Therefore, in order to remove the magnetic tape cartridge from the magnetic tape device after feeding the magnetic tape and completing the recording/playback operation, a rewind operation is required to rewind the tape back to its original spool or hub. The time required for rewinding increases in proportion to the tape length.
3850MSS (Special Publication Showa 53-23199) is 10 seconds,
XYTEX automatic tape storage device
8061), it is 4 minutes, which cannot be ignored compared to the recording and playback time. This rewinding time is wasted time from the viewpoint of data processing time, and is a major problem in improving processing speed.

Purpose of the Invention In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention uses a magnetic tape cartridge as a recording medium having two reels that can be loaded and unloaded into a recording mechanism without rewinding. The purpose of this invention is to improve the data processing speed by omitting the rewinding operation during a time period when high processing speed is required and performing the rewinding operation during a time period when there is no demand for data processing.

Embodiments of the Invention Although the traffic characteristics related to medium access in ordinary computer systems to which the present invention relates vary depending on the system, there are no large fluctuations from day to day for a single system. In other words, it is possible to predict the frequency of access requests based on the time period.

The present invention takes advantage of this feature. That is, the traffic characteristics of the system are measured for a certain period of time, and based on the measurement results, time periods are divided into busy times and slow times for medium access. Then, the time comparison mechanism of the electronic computer that uses the collective cartridge storage device is used to determine busy and off-peak times, and the cartridges used during busy times are returned to their original positions in the cartridge storage without being rewound. , I took it out during off-peak hours and rewound it.

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

The figure is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, in which 1 is an electronic computer using a collective cartridge storage device, 2 is a time comparison mechanism thereof, 3 is a collective cartridge storage device implementing the present invention, 4 is a computer computer using a collective cartridge storage device; 5 is a cartridge operation control device, 5 is a recording mechanism control device, 6 and 6' are recording mechanisms, 7 is a cartridge automatic selection operation mechanism, 8 is an interface control unit with the computer 1, 9 is an instruction decoding unit, and 10 is a control unit. circuit,
11 is a microprocessor, 12 is a cartridge storage address management table, 13 is a cartridge storage, and 20 to 28 are signal or data lines. Here, the cartridge storage 13 has positions for storing a plurality of (many) cartridges, and a storage address is assigned to each storage position. The automatic cartridge selection operation mechanism 7 accesses any storage address of the cartridge storage 13 under the control of the control circuit 10, picks up a stored cartridge, and mounts it on the recording mechanism 6, 6'. , 6' and the recording mechanisms 6, 6' are picked up, demounted, and returned to the original storage address in the cartridge storage 13.

The computer 1 can issue commands using normal input/output operation procedures to make the cartridge operation control device 4 know when to switch from busy to off-season and from off-peak to busy. If the above-mentioned switching time is set in advance in the computer using a console interface, etc., the time comparison mechanism of the computer 1 will use a time device that measures the passage of real time to detect the switching time when the set time is reached. This is because you can let them know.

When the control circuit 10 is informed of this via the interface control section 8, line 21, instruction decoding section 9 and line 23, it sets a flag for determining whether it is busy or not. Furthermore, as a result, the control circuit 10
The microprocessor 11 therein notifies the recording mechanism control device 5 of this content through line 25 and causes it to be stored. In this way, the busy time or off time information specified by the computer 1 is held.

Also, when the computer 1 issues an unload command to the recording mechanism 6 via the recording mechanism control device 5, the recording mechanism control device 5 records the status depending on whether it is busy or not. The mechanism control device 5 issues an unload command to the recording mechanism 6. Specifically, the unloading command codes may be set separately. On the other hand, the recording mechanism 6 has a function of performing unloading without rewinding during busy times and unloading with rewinding during off-peak times.

First, we will explain the operation during busy times. The control circuit 10 and the recording mechanism control device 5 memorize busy times. Consider a case where a command is issued from the computer 1 to mount a certain cartridge on the recording mechanism 6. The microprocessor 11 checks whether the storage address of the cartridge in the cartridge storage 13 is in the cartridge storage address management table 12 that manages the storage addresses of unrewinded cartridges.

(1) If the storage address of the relevant cartridge is “not” in the management table 12, the storage address of the relevant cartridge is stored in the cartridge storage address management table 12.
At the same time, the control circuit 10 instructs the automatic cartridge selection mechanism 7 to mount the cartridge at the cartridge storage address in the cartridge storage 13 onto the recording mechanism 6. The recording mechanism 6 reports to the electronic computer 1 via the recording mechanism control device 5 through the line 28 using the same procedure as reporting cancellation of the intervention request state of a normal magnetic tape device, etc., and at the same time performs recording and reproducing operations as specified. When the recording/reproducing operation is completed, the computer 1 normally instructs an unloading operation. The operation after this is the characteristic operation of the present invention. First, since the recording mechanism control device 5 stores the busy time, the recording mechanism 6 performs an unload operation without a rewind operation, and then reports the completion to the computer 1 via the recording mechanism control device 5. When the computer 1 receives this, it instructs the automatic cartridge selection operation mechanism 7 to return the cartridge to a predetermined cartridge storage address in the cartridge storage 13. That is, during busy times, the cartridge is stored at its original address without being rewinded. However, since the cartridge has not been rewinded, the cartridge storage address is recorded and managed in the cartridge storage address management table 12.

(2) Next, the case where the cartridge in question is “existed” in the cartridge storage address management table will be explained. The microprocessor 11 is the control circuit 10
The cartridge is mounted on the designated recording mechanism 6 through the cartridge. Upon receiving the load completion signal from the recording mechanism control device 5, the microprocessor 11 issues a rewind command. Note that this load completion signal is received when (1) is ``absent'', but when it is ``absent'', the microprocessor 11 discards it because there is no need for rewide. As soon as the rewind is completed, the microprocessor 11
receives the rewind completion signal from the recording mechanism control section 5, and the microprocessor 11 outputs the rewind signal on line 2.
The completion of mounting is reported to the computer 1 through 0 and 22. Note that there is no problem even if the report is made at the time of receiving the load completion signal.

When the mounting is completed, the recording mechanism 6 reports to the computer 1 via the recording mechanism control device 5 that the intervention request state of a normal magnetic tape device or the like has been canceled. The mounting operation is now complete and normal recording/playback operation begins. The unloading process after the recording/reproducing operation is completed is the same as in the case of "no" in (1).

Next, processing during off-peak hours will be explained. First, the processing for a mount request from the computer 1 is the same as the processing during busy times. Furthermore, in response to an unload command from the computer 1, the recording mechanism control device 5 performs unloading with rewind, since it stores the off-duty time. Also, the collective cartridge storage device 3 autonomously performs the following rewind operation during off-peak hours. When the off-duty time setting is made, the microprocessor 11 reads the cartridge storage address management table 1.
2 is read, and as in the case of (2), the cartridge at the storage address in the cartridge storage 13 is mounted on the recording mechanism through the control circuit 10, and the rewind operation is performed. Upon receiving the rewind completion signal from the recording mechanism control device 5,
The microprocessor 11 issues a demount command and returns the cartridge to its original storage address in the cartridge storage 13. At the same time, the corresponding storage address in the cartridge storage address management table 12 is deleted. Thereafter, the above operation is repeated until all storage addresses are erased or until a change is made from a quiet time to a busy time. In addition, when a mount request is made from the electronic computer 1 to the recording mechanism being rewinded during rewinding, the microprocessor 11 returns a "in use" signal to the electronic computer 1 through lines 22 and 20. After the rewind is completed and the cartridge is unloaded and returned to its original storage position, the microprocessor 11 returns to the computer 1.
It reports “IOD end” to the device and notifies that the recording mechanism is free.

Also, when a mount request is made for a cartridge that is being rewinded, the microprocessor 1
1 is a “retry state” used for normal I/O operations
report. If the recording mechanism currently being mounted and the recording mechanism targeted for the mount request are the same, "IOD completed" is returned after the rewind is completed. Immediate “channel termination” for retry mount requests
Report “IOD finished”.

If the recording mechanism currently being mounted is different from the recording mechanism that is the target of the mount request, the microprocessor 11 instructs the computer 1 to "end IOD" after unloading the cartridge and returning it to its original storage position. The retry mount request to be returned and subsequent processing are the same as normal off-season processing.

Note that a configuration in which a dedicated rewind device without a head is provided is also possible. However, in this case, when a mount request is issued for a cartridge that is being rewinded during off-peak hours, the cartridge must be returned to its original storage position after rewinding, and then an "IOD completed" report corresponding to the "retry status" report is issued.

Effects of the Invention As explained above, according to the present invention, it is possible to eliminate the wasted time required for rewind operations during busy periods, so that (1) the time can be utilized to make maximum use of the collective cartridge storage device to further improve performance; can be achieved.
(2) Utilize this time to drive the cartridge selection mechanism in low-speed mode to improve reliability.
It is possible to reduce power consumption.

Furthermore, by providing a dedicated rewind device without a head, head wear during rewinding can be avoided and the reliability of the recording mechanism can be improved.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

The figure is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention. 1...Electronic computer, 2...Time comparison mechanism, 3...
...collective cartridge storage device, 4...cartridge operation control device, 5...recording mechanism control device, 6,
6'...Recording mechanism, 7...Cartridge automatic selection mechanism, 8...Interface control unit, 9...Instruction decoding unit, 10...Control circuit, 11...Microprocessor, 12...Cartridge storage address management Table, 13...Cartridge storage, 20-2
8...Signal line or data line.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A plurality of two-reel magnetic tape cartridges, a cartridge storage for storing the cartridges, an automatic cartridge selection operation mechanism capable of selecting, transporting, and storing the cartridges, a recording mechanism for recording and reproducing signals, and a cartridge storage for storing the cartridges. In a collective cartridge storage device having a recording mechanism control device for controlling a recording mechanism, and a cartridge operation control device, the cartridge operation control device has a control circuit including a microprocessor that issues commands to the recording mechanism control section, and The cartridge storage address management table stores the address of the storage where used cartridges are stored. It maintains off-hours information, controls the storage mechanism to return the cartridge to the cartridge storage without rewinding it during busy periods, and returns the cartridge at the cartridge storage address stored in the cartridge storage address management table to the storage mechanism during off-peak hours. What is claimed is: 1. A collective cartridge storage device, characterized in that the cartridges are controlled to be transported and rewinded via a recording mechanism control section.