6 Nov
2001
6 Nov
'01
10:39 a.m.
see below, plz.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sellam Ismail" <foo(a)siconic.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2001 1:52 PM
Subject: Re: hard-sector 5 1/4 disk
On Mon, 5 Nov 2001, Richard Erlacher wrote:
I would label this as consensus rather than opinion, Sellam, as I've actually
done very little with Apple][ since the early '80's, but I've had to deal
with
the problems others have brought to me, which were trivially solvable by
plucking out the offending component, namely the Apple][ disk subsystem. Once
the disk subsystem has been gone, the Apple][ was quite solid and predictable,
in ways other than, "well, it's work for another hour or so ... then the disk
won't be readable any longer ...."
I don't know what you Apple-Computer-Co pimps
have been smoking ...
I've never said ANYTHING about products manufactured and sold after
1990 or so, and I certainly have limited my comments to the products
using the Wozniak floppy disk interface, which is the basis of the
complaints I've had to deal with since 1978. That's not to say that
That's the problem I have with your comments...the fact that they are so
very wrong and invalid. Like I said, I wish you would explicitly limit
your comments to being your opinion and not insisting on stating them as
"facts".
<OPINION>
I think your recollection is tainted by the Apple-colored glasses, Sellam.
I've
recently talked this sort of problem over with some of the guys who dealt with
it back in the '80's, which I didn't because I simply refused to use the
things
after seeing how cavalierly the Apple simply died and required a restart to
continue. Some of these guys remember the bitter arguments over the relative
reliability of the Apple][ versus CP/M boxes costing little more than half what
an Apple cost. As you can imagine, it's only grudgingly that they admit that
their choice was the wrong one. Hindsight is generally better than what one's
got here and now.
Since you seem to know something I don't, which is always possible, particularly
in this arena, perhaps you can clear up what one can do to recover from a disk
failure "hang" when the Apple cannot read its diskette. This sort of thing
seems to happen about once per hour if one is running software the actually uses
the disk drives, e.g. every two to three seconds, continually for extended
periods. It even occurs when running CP/M on the Apple drives. That's why
nobody I know did that.
If you know what to do to avoid having to restart and to avoid having to give up
on work entered manually since the last disk save, then please, quote me the
page and line in the documentation where it's described. That's all most folks
had to go on back when the Apple was a current device.
I'll repeat, that I find the Apple disk
interface of the type
associated with the Apple][ family to be ridiculously fragile,
requiring extensive precautions in day-to-day use and extensive
maintenance on a frequent (weekly) basis in order to make them at all
useful. That's a disappointment because technology available at the
same time these devices became popular worked MUCH better, though
people wanting to buy fully integrated systems which the Apple
"computers" of the time were marketed to be, weren't willing to pay
the price, hence, were stuck with the Apple product instead.
</OPINION>
Now, as for the post 1985 products, all of you
Microsoft-haters ought
to remember how Apple dealt with its user base during the Lisa and
early MAC years, whenever you disparage M$ (not to defend these
practices ... ) for its distribution of different OS API's to
different software vendors, depending on the "deal" that was made.
Ok, they both have bad policies with regards to their API. It's just that
MS is excessively more egregious about it.
<FACTUALLY INCORRECT OPINION>
All this stems from the fact that back in the
'80's, if even the
teensiest thing went wrong in the Apple]['s interaction with its own
FD subsystem, the Apple][ went "TILT" and unless you knew things not
yet published, you had no option but to restart and lose your current
set of working data. What's more, if you were foolish enough to power
down the system with a diskette in the drive, or if you were foolish
enough to set the Apple up as shown in numerous installations, with
the monitor atop the 2 FDD's and that pair atop the Apple box, your
disk subsystem gave you what they (Apple Computer Co) figured you
deserved.
</FACTUALLY INCORRECT OPINION>
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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