Reading tapes from other platform

I hope someone can provide some suggestions on my problem.

I'm trying to read some catridge tapes created (tar or dd format) from SUN or SGI onto an ancient AT&T Unix System V/386 Rel 3.2 machine. But everything I tried to read in the tape on the AT&T machine there is this error message "iSBC224a controller 0 tape 0 (No Data Detected)".

The command "dd if=/dev/rmt0 conv=swab | tar xvf -" produces the same error message but I have no problem to read in tapes using the same command lin the other way round (AT&T to SGI or SUN). I'm using the correct media tape. I'm running out of idea on what to do next.

The last idea I have is to put the AT&T machine on the same network as the SGI or SUN but setting up network of this AT&T is a bit complicated since it is not using TCP. Unless someone can guide me.

Thanks in advance.

You might want to check the man pages for the default block size that dd and tar uses for each system. You may have to specify it on the 'old dog'.