----------Original Message: Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 21:32:19 +1300 From: Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at usap.gov> Subject: Intellegent peripherals (was Re: MIT provides MULTICS source and documentation (DPS-8 simulation)) <snip> The DOS for the 2040/3040/4040/8050/8250 drives had a "copy drive N to drive M" command (I'd quote chapter and verse, but I don't have access to the 'net right now). <snip> You could then, say, use your IEEE-488 acoustic coupler to logon to a BBS while disks were copying, or print to a printer, or whatever, since the IEEE bus was not involved in that disk-to-disk copy. <snip> -ethan ---------Reply: And if there was an error during the copy or backup the drive merely lit an error LED (which some people supplemented with a piezo beeper because it was easy to miss) and you had to ask the drive what the error was (and clear the error condition). That way whatever you were doing in the meantime would not be interrupted with an error message. You could also defragment (collect) the disk while doing something else, although for some reason the format (header) command tied up the computer until it finished. m