3 Jan
2010
3 Jan
'10
8:28 p.m.
On Jan 3, 2010, at 3:08 PM, Josh Dersch wrote:
Well, then don't run Windows 95. Probably good advice on principle.
I prefer having intelligently designed hardware that allows
software to determine when the disk can be ejected rather than
allowing the media to be yanked out at any time. The old Macintosh
or Sparcstation floppy drives are one such example. Alas the PC
never had such luxury. (At least the later-common Zip drive
(despite its other flaws) had a nice "soft" eject button which did
the right thing...)
Water under the bridge at this point, I suppose since the only
people who still use floppy disks are on this mailing list :).
...and LOTS of people using them in test equipment and instrument
control and factory stuff, not to mention the fact that the entire
computing world doesn't move at the breakneck pace of what's
available in retail stores. There are quite a few businesses around
here who are running 486 desktops. Floppies will be around for quite
a while, at least 3.5" 1.44MB ones.
Just sayin'..
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
> Microsoft apparently wanted a volume tracking
feature that would
> work
> for all removable media and so devised the above-described method;
> words in the KB say that the VSN in the boot sector isn't reliable
> enough and the implementors apparently didn't want to take the CP/M
> route of checksumming the first few directory entries of a disk.
>
I much prefer having to mount and unmount disks than having an OS
that overwrites the boot sector without asking me....