8 Nov
2001
8 Nov
'01
12:45 a.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sellam Ismail" <foo(a)siconic.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2001 4:05 AM
Subject: Re: hard-sector 5 1/4 disk
If that were the case, those habits would have shown up in contexts other than
the Apple.
Unfortunately, the Apple just lights the LED on the drive and hangs. If it were
limited to a single system, that's what I'd suspect, but it behaves just the
same on an ][+, IIe, and //c. by virtue of the physical differences, some of
these "difficulties" aren't encountered on the //c, since it doesn't
have drives
sitting between the main box and the monitor.
On Tue, 6 Nov 2001, Richard Erlacher wrote:
Perhaps you should ask yourself that, Sellam.
When I'm inexperienced with a particular piece of equipment, e.g. the Apple
series of products, I seek advice from folks of whom I know they have extensive
experience working with that particular machine. In order to avoid falling into
a trap with too limited a base of experience, I check with more than one such
individual.
Unlike you, Sellam, some folks actually did useful work with these machines, in
spite of their apparent weaknesses. There were ways in which one could avoid
the pitfalls associated with the various problems that were discovered, and
there were a number of problems that weren't real, but which suffered from a
high level of folklore among their user community. The guys who actually earned
their living with Apple hardware generally knew this, and, since I knew what
kinds of cars and houses their work provided them back then, I find it a
reasonable way to benefit from the experience of those who were successful at
using those tools. I don't listen to the guys who were selling used cars then
and are selling stocks now, no matter how skilled they are at talking about the
Apple.
I would label this as consensus rather than
opinion, Sellam, as I've
What kind of "consensus" is a consensus of one?
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 ...."
Fairytales.
I think your recollection is tainted by the
Apple-colored glasses,
It's not a "recollection". As I said, I still use my Appple //e to this
day. Before my //e I had a ][+ I used for a few years. NEVER did I have
the problems you say you encountered. Your whole story is suspect. I
hate to say it, but either the hardware you folks in your particular part
of Colorado were getting were all defective, or you just didn't know how
to use them.
Did you always put disks away back in their sleeves? Did you refrain
from throwing them across the room or leaving them on the floor where they
could be stepped upon? Did you keep your pocket magnets away from them?
Did you avoid putting them in the dishwasher to clean them?
The problem was not the drives. It was the diskettes you used and the way
you treated them. Plain and simple.
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.
First of all, what operating system are we talking about, and what
software are we running?
If it's DOS 3.3, any disk error will result in some sort of error message
and a return to the command prompt (if that's where you were). If there
is an error encountered during the execution of a program, and the program
is doing no error trapping, the program will break execution upon the disk
error, returning you to the error prompt. If the program is doing error
handling, then it will usually provide you with some sort of error message
and a recovery option. If the program is written poorly, who knows what
may happen. Perhaps THEN the computer will lock up. Does this describe
YOUR experience? If so, what shit software were you running?
All this pretty much applies to ProDOS as well, although ProDOS was a tad
more robust.
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.
Like I said before, this is only happening in your partiular installation.
If I were you, I'd look for high voltage (kilovolts) power lines running
within 1 foot of your disk drives that may be causing eletromagnetic
interference. Being that that is most likely an unlikely scenario (at
least I would hope so, but it might explain your odd behavior) then I'd
next look for any very powerful magents that you may have sitting near
your disk drives. I would also have the room with your disk drives
exorcized for any demons that might be in the area. Have your local
pastor come in with some holy water.
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 can't answer your question. I would need more information from you. SO
far, the only information you've given is "it doesn't work". You're a tech support nightmare.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org