27 Dec
2006
27 Dec
'06
11:19 a.m.
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at
sydex.com>
---snip---
It depends on the disk driver. Some drivers may decide
to proceed on
READY present and hang if there's READY without a disk in the drive.
BTW, this is why the 765 on the PC has a software reset line--since
the drives don't have a READY status, the 765 will hang if no index
pulses are there. But if your driver doesn't put a deadman timer on
the chip operations, your system could sit waiting for a diskette
forever.
---snip---
Hi Chuck
This shouldn't be an issue for the Cat. It doesn't make much sense
to run it without having a disk in the drive. The complete machine
state is saved on the disk( it does have a small battery backed RAM ).
Still, things like the text work in progress and any Forth words that
have been added are saved to the disk and restored on powerup.
That is why the drive is only single sided. It only needs to save
256K.
When I get some time, I'll run some experiments, using other drives.
The fellow that I'm communicating with may beat me to it. He
has several Cats with bad drives. It seems that he is still using them
for business purposes.
Dwight
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