6 Sep
2012
6 Sep
'12
1:13 p.m.
I don't know if anyone is still interested in this. I have a Kaypro Micro1
with monitor and keyboard. It has a 10 MB hard drive and runs on MS DOS 5.0
and Windows 3.1. It has 2 3.5" floppy drives. I've never seen another one
anyplace.
Dave
7 Sep
7 Sep
12:38 a.m.
On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 3:13 PM, Dave Flowers <dflowers at gmail.com> wrote:
I don't know if anyone is still interested in
this. I have a Kaypro Micro1
with monitor and keyboard. It has a 10 MB hard drive and runs on MS DOS 5.0
and Windows 3.1. It has 2 3.5" floppy drives. I've never seen another one
anyplace.
Interesting - that was an 8086 machine IIRC. Or am I forgetting that
an XT could run Win 3.1?
Also, where are you/is it?
--
jht
3:55 a.m.
On 7 September 2012 08:38, Jason T <silent700 at gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 3:13 PM, Dave Flowers
<dflowers at gmail.com> wrote:
I am trying to remember if there was a magic incantation to get it to
start if you had an NEC V30 chip or something, but I am not at all
sure. I suspect that for an actual Intel 8086, Windows 3.0 was the
latest - and you still couldn't run in VGA mode. (You only got VGA if
you had an NEC V30; the VGA driver used 286 instructions.)
MS-DOS 5 is really inefficient on anything less than a 386, too - 3.3
or 3.31 gives more free conventional memory.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
I don't know if anyone is still interested in
this. I have a Kaypro Micro1
with monitor and keyboard. It has a 10 MB hard drive and runs on MS DOS 5.0
and Windows 3.1. It has 2 3.5" floppy drives. I've never seen another one
anyplace.
Interesting - that was an 8086 machine IIRC. Or am I forgetting that
an XT could run Win 3.1? 
1:07 p.m.
New subject: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
On Fri, 7 Sep 2012, Jason T wrote:
Interesting - that was an 8086 machine IIRC. Or am I
forgetting that
an XT could run Win 3.1?
XT could run Windoze 3.00, but could NOT run 3.10
3.10 requires A20 support and HIMEM.SYS. (Yes, it can run on an AT with
1M of RAM, but only if some of that RAM is mapped to reside above the 1M
line)
HIMEM.SYS "solved" the "RAM CRAM" issues of too many TSRs.
3.10 also installed SMARTDRV, (misconfigured to enable write cacheing,
altered write sequence, and return to DOS prompt without first writing the
buffers). Correcting that misconfiguration was the change that
differentiated MS-DOS 6.20 from 6.00, and "fixed the problems with disk
compression".
8 Sep
8 Sep
6:16 a.m.
New subject: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
On 7 September 2012 21:07, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
HIMEM.SYS "solved" the "RAM CRAM"
issues of too many TSRs.
Not really, no. It gave you just 64K of "High RAM". There was a
special version of Novell's NETX.EXE to go in there, and MS-DOS 5 or
above could relocate some DOS data structures and things in there, but
64K wasn't much.
It was Upper Memory Blocks - UMBs - that were the real solution, and
that meant a 386 and EMM385.EXE or Quaterdeck QEMM386.
3.10 also installed SMARTDRV, (misconfigured to enable
write cacheing,
altered write sequence, and return to DOS prompt without first writing the
buffers).
I was always careful, trained my clients to be, and never had a problem.
Correcting that misconfiguration was the change that
differentiated MS-DOS 6.20 from 6.00, and "fixed the problems with disk
compression".
MS-DOS 6.0 contained DoubleSpace.
Then, STAC sued over code stolen from Stacker, and won.
Result: MS-DOS 6.1: no disk compression
Then, it was re-implemented with clean code - still a theft of the
concept, but not the code - as DriveSpace and release in MS-DOS 6.2.
Then there were 2 minor bug-fixes, 6.21 and 6.22.
I don't recall SMARTDRV being a major factor.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
9:41 a.m.
New subject: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
> HIMEM.SYS "solved" the "RAM
CRAM" issues of too many TSRs.
On Sat, 8 Sep 2012, Liam Proven wrote:
Not really, no. It gave you just 64K of "High
RAM".
Hence the quotation marks around "solved". It was a ludicrous claim.
3.10 also
installed SMARTDRV, (misconfigured to enable write cacheing,
altered write sequence, and return to DOS prompt without first writing the
buffers).
I was always careful, trained my clients to be, and never had a problem.
Correcting
that misconfiguration was the change that
differentiated MS-DOS 6.20 from 6.00, and "fixed the problems with disk
compression".
MS-DOS 6.0 contained DoubleSpace.
Then, STAC sued over code stolen from Stacker, and won. Result: MS-DOS 6.1: no disk compression
Nope.
There was no MS-DOS 6.1 (or 6.10. THAT was PC-DOS 6.10 (with a different
compression).
The debacle that resulted in free "step-up" from 6.00 to 6.20 was BEFORE
the suit.
The lawsuit caused the change from 6.20 with compression to 6.21 without
compression. Then 6.22 had a different "non-infringing" compression.
The judge awarded Stac about $100 million, but awarded MICROS~1 about $30
million in their counter-suit. Billg said, "I'm having a bad day."
Then, it was re-implemented with clean code - still a
theft of the
concept, but not the code - as DriveSpace and release in MS-DOS 6.2.
NO. in 6.22
As to "theft of concept", STAC was NOT the only disk compression product
on the market, nor the first.
NB: There was never a Six point ONE. Nor a six point TWO. It was Six
point TEN, and Six point TWENTY.
MOV AH, 30h
INT 21h
returned 6 in AL and 0Ah or 1.4h in AH
Microsoft version numbers are an integer "MAJOR" number, a "full
stop",
followed by a TWO digit decimal number for "MINOR" number
There WAS a DOS "Four point one" (4.01), but never a 4.1 (4.10)
Then there were 2 minor bug-fixes, 6.21 and 6.22.
You are right in concept, but your version numbers are wrong.
6.00 was the full-blown shopping excursion. Basically 5.00 with lots of
bundled stuff (hence "NEW AND IMPROVED"), including the infringing disk
compression.
6.10 was IBM's PC-DOS version. It had a different compression
6.20 was "to repair problems with disk compression", such as those
reported by Infoworld. The "repair" consisted of reconfiguring SMARTDRV
to have
1) write-cacheing OFF by default
2) IF write-cacheing were enabled to not re-arrange writes
3) IF write-cacheing were enabled, to NOT return to the DOS prompt until
the buffers had been written.
(6.20 may have had some additional trivial bug fixes)
6.21 was the one with disk compression REMOVED
6.22 was the re-release with "non-infringing" disk compression
I don't recall SMARTDRV being a major factor.
Microsoft would never admit that SMARTDRV had problems, but it was
actually the ONLY (or at least PRIMARY) factor!
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
9 Sep
9 Sep
8:27 a.m.
New subject: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
On 8 September 2012 17:41, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
OIC. Fair enough!
Careful would not protect you if you had a disk write error during delayed
writes (you were slightly lucky), but it WOULD NOT protect you from
turning off the machine before writes after it came back to the prompt on
exiting a program. "I'm DONE! SAVE. EXIT. At the prompt? Hit the power
switch!" Agood reason for implementing the "shutdown procedure"!
I taught people to do Ctrl-Alt-Del and wait for the BIOS screen,
*then* power off.
But to be fair, lots of OSs had problems if you turned off without
shutting down. It's just that MS-DOS was so rudimentary that it didn't
/have/ a shutdown procedure and so users weren't accustomed to this.
Correct.
I was certain about this, but upon checking, I discover that you're
absolutely right. I do apologise.
OK, agreed. My memory from nearly 20y ago is clearly more fallible
than I realised.
Conceded.
Certainly willing to believe that!
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
> HIMEM.SYS
"solved" the "RAM CRAM" issues of too many TSRs.
On Sat, 8 Sep 2012, Liam Proven wrote:
Not really, no. It gave you just 64K of
"High RAM".
Hence the quotation marks around "solved". It was a ludicrous claim. 3.10 also installed SMARTDRV, (misconfigured to enable
write cacheing,
altered write sequence, and return to DOS prompt without first writing the
buffers).
I was always careful, trained my clients to be, and never had a problem.
Infoworld printed at least a dozen articles of the
form of "Users of new
DOS 6 losing data!"
Return to prompt before writing buffers was where the InforWorld "test"
blew it. Billg tried to tell Infoworld that their testing methodology was
flawed, and they misinterpreted that as "intimidation". InfoWorld's
"test" of "disk compression problems" consisted of Word Pervert and
Lotus
running macros, Followed by a reboot, In a loop, until the disk had
problems. The ACTUAL cause of the problems was that the reboot was
occurring before the write-cached buffers got written to disk. Microsoft
correctly insisted that the testing was flawed and did not show disk
compression problems; but Microsoft would NOT admit that SMARTDRV was,
indeed, damaging the test data, and causing the bad results.
Fair enough.
Correcting that misconfiguration was the change that
differentiated MS-DOS 6.20 from 6.00, and "fixed the problems with disk
compression".
MS-DOS 6.0 contained DoubleSpace.
Then, STAC sued over code stolen from Stacker, and won. Result: MS-DOS 6.1: no disk compression
Nope.
There was no MS-DOS 6.1 (or 6.10. THAT was PC-DOS 6.10 (with a different
compression). The debacle that resulted in free "step-up"
from 6.00 to 6.20 was BEFORE
the suit.
The lawsuit caused the change from 6.20 with compression to 6.21 without
compression. Then 6.22 had a different "non-infringing" compression.
Yes indeed. My error. Sorry.
The judge awarded Stac about $100 million,
I thought it was more, but hey. It set the company up for years &
enabled them to (wisely) get out of the compression market. The snag
is that they bought into modem-based remote control software, another
market with a limited future.
But AIR the STAC founders were quite happy. I think I remember a quote
about "we ought to sue Microsoft every day," or something.
but awarded MICROS~1 about $30
million in their counter-suit.
Didn't know that.
Billg said, "I'm having a bad day."
Bah. Bastard.
Then, it was
re-implemented with clean code - still a theft of the
concept, but not the code - as DriveSpace and release in MS-DOS 6.2.
NO. in 6.22 As to "theft of concept", STAC was NOT the
only disk compression product
on the market, nor the first.
No, true, it wasn't. There was SuperStor, for instance, which IIRC
DR-DOS bundled at one point. Briefly. I never liked it much.
There was also one that created a second, shadow compressed drive but
left your C drive working. ("SecondDrive"?) That required too much
Clue on the part of Lusers & didn't prosper.
NB: There was never a Six point ONE. Nor a six point
TWO. It was Six
point TEN, and Six point TWENTY.
My meagre inner mathematician shudders at such usage.
MOV AH, 30h
INT 21h
returned 6 in AL and 0Ah or 1.4h in AH
Microsoft version numbers are an integer "MAJOR" number, a "full
stop",
followed by a TWO digit decimal number for "MINOR" number
There WAS a DOS "Four point one" (4.01), but never a 4.1 (4.10)
Got a reference? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I've /never/ heard this
usage.
Then there
were 2 minor bug-fixes, 6.21 and 6.22.
You are right in concept, but your version
numbers are wrong. 6.00 was the full-blown shopping excursion. Basically
5.00 with lots of
bundled stuff (hence "NEW AND IMPROVED"), including the infringing disk
compression.
MS Antivirus, strong-armed out of Central Point. MS Backup, ditto.
DoubleSpace, with code stolen from Stacker after Stacker's
negotiations over licensing Stacker fell through. (Unlike CP, Stacker
wouldn't bend over & take it. So MICROS~1 just kept the source code
they already had been inspecting and nicked the bit they wanted.
6.10 was IBM's PC-DOS version. It had a different
compression
Indeed. And a different, terrible editor, IIRC.
6.20 was "to repair problems with disk
compression", such as those
reported by Infoworld. The "repair" consisted of reconfiguring SMARTDRV
to have
1) write-cacheing OFF by default
2) IF write-cacheing were enabled to not re-arrange writes
3) IF write-cacheing were enabled, to NOT return to the DOS prompt until
the buffers had been written.
Fair enough.
(6.20 may have had some additional trivial bug fixes)
6.21 was the one with disk compression REMOVED
6.22 was the re-release with "non-infringing" disk compression
Now you spell it out, yes, this is as I recall.
I don't
recall SMARTDRV being a major factor.
Microsoft would never admit that SMARTDRV had problems, but it was
actually the ONLY (or at least PRIMARY) factor! 
9:03 a.m.
New subject: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
On 09/09/2012 11:27 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
Careful would not protect you if you had a disk write error during delayed
writes (you were slightly lucky), but it WOULD NOT protect you from
turning off the machine before writes after it came back to the prompt on
exiting a program. "I'm DONE! SAVE. EXIT. At the prompt? Hit the power
switch!" Agood reason for implementing the "shutdown procedure"!
I taught people to do Ctrl-Alt-Del and wait for the BIOS screen,
*then* power off.
Umm...did MS-DOS hook that interrupt and tell smartdrv to flush its
buffers? I don't recall it having done so. If it didn't, that practice
did absolutely nothing. (sorry)
3.10 also
installed SMARTDRV, (misconfigured to enable write cacheing,
altered write sequence, and return to DOS prompt without first writing the
buffers).
I was always careful, trained my clients to be, and never had a problem.
But to be fair, lots of OSs had problems if you turned
off without
shutting down. It's just that MS-DOS was so rudimentary that it didn't
/have/ a shutdown procedure and so users weren't accustomed to this.
Yeah. That's sorta analogous to people preferring IDE because it's
"simpler" because it "doesn't need all those silly terminators and
stuff". It actually DID need terminators...but they were never
implemented due to a stellar combination of cheapness and cluelessness.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
9:58 a.m.
New subject: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
> But to be fair, lots of OSs had problems if you
turned off without
> shutting down. It's just that MS-DOS was so rudimentary that it didn't
> /have/ a shutdown procedure and so users weren't accustomed to this.
On Sun, 9 Sep 2012, Dave McGuire wrote:
Yeah. That's sorta analogous to people
preferring IDE because it's
"simpler" because it "doesn't need all those silly terminators and
stuff". It actually DID need terminators...but they were never
implemented due to a stellar combination of cheapness and cluelessness.
Good analogy!
Since the advent of hard disks MS-DOS (2.00 and above) SHOULDA had a
shutdown procedure, including a "head park".
But, due to a stellar combination of cheapness and cluelessness, . . .
3:45 p.m.
New subject: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
On Sun, Sep 09, 2012 at 12:03:38PM -0400, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 09/09/2012 11:27 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
I taught people to do Ctrl-Alt-Del and wait for the BIOS screen,
*then* power off.
Umm...did MS-DOS hook that interrupt and tell smartdrv to flush its
buffers? I don't recall it having done so. If it didn't, that practice
did absolutely nothing. (sorry)
Not sure about MS-DOS & smartdrv, but IIRC the hyperdsk cache (which I
used instead of smartdrv) did indeed hook Ctrl-Alt-Del to flush the caches
before reboot. It also some more special hotkeys for things like "flush
caches now" or "switch cache to write-through" which where quite handy
when
testing potentially crashy software - like stuff you've just compiled ;-)
> 3.10 also installed SMARTDRV, (misconfigured to
enable write cacheing,
> altered write sequence, and return to DOS prompt without first writing the
> buffers).
I was always careful, trained my clients to be, and never had a problem.
Careful would not protect you if you had a disk write error during delayed
writes (you were slightly lucky), but it WOULD NOT protect you from
turning off the machine before writes after it came back to the prompt on
exiting a program. "I'm DONE! SAVE. EXIT. At the prompt? Hit the power
switch!" Agood reason for implementing the "shutdown procedure"! Yeah. That's sorta analogous to people
preferring IDE because it's
"simpler" because it "doesn't need all those silly terminators and
stuff". It actually DID need terminators...but they were never
implemented due to a stellar combination of cheapness and cluelessness.
*urk*
Don't remind me of IDE (or PATA as it is called nowadays). There were good
reasons why the first machine I bought with my own money was a pure SCSI
machine, including optical drives. And I stuck with SCSI until a few years
ago when I started using SATA disks for bulk storage and workstation disks.
The root disk of the server and $HOME are still sitting on SCSI (and RAID1
at that), though.
Kind regards,
Alex.
--
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
10 Sep
10 Sep
8:40 a.m.
New subject: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
On 09/09/2012 06:45 PM, Alexander Schreiber wrote:
Yup.
Yeah.
That's sorta analogous to people preferring IDE because it's
"simpler" because it "doesn't need all those silly terminators and
stuff". It actually DID need terminators...but they were never
implemented due to a stellar combination of cheapness and cluelessness.
*urk* Don't remind me of IDE (or PATA as it is called
nowadays). There were good
reasons why the first machine I bought with my own money was a pure SCSI
machine, including optical drives. And I stuck with SCSI until a few years
ago when I started using SATA disks for bulk storage and workstation disks.
Same here mostly.
The root disk of the server and $HOME are still
sitting on SCSI (and RAID1
at that), though.
All FibreChannel here on the serious machines. SATA on the desktops.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
6:36 a.m.
New subject: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
On 9 September 2012 17:03, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
On 09/09/2012 11:27 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
I taught people to do Ctrl-Alt-Del and wait for the BIOS screen,
*then* power off.
Umm...did MS-DOS hook that interrupt and tell smartdrv to flush its
buffers? I don't recall it having done so. If it didn't, that practice
did absolutely nothing. (sorry)
AFAIK, yes. I believe I found the tip in a magazine somewhere, there
being no WWW in those days. If you hit C-A-D there would sometimes be
a brief pause and a spurt of disk activity, /then/ the PC would
reboot.
Before MS-DOS 5, IBM also used to include a disk cache driver for DOS
with some of the PS/2s. It was documented, but not much or well. It
was a small .SYS driver to be loaded in CONFIG.SYS and it gave a
/very/ significant boost in performance. Great in the era of 286s and
386s running DOS 3.3 or 4.01, with 1MB or so of RAM and no use for it
without expensive 3rd party utilities such as QEMM.
IIRC the IBM cache actually displayed a message about flushing buffers
if you pressed C-A-D at the DOS prompt.
Many years later, running a VAX network in the mid-1990s, I was amazed
to discover that VMS did not include a disk cache. It was a
/seriously/ expensive extra - thousands of pounds - but batch
performance went through the roof when I tried a time-limited demo of
one. We bought it PDQ.
> 3.10 also installed SMARTDRV, (misconfigured to
enable write cacheing,
> altered write sequence, and return to DOS prompt without first writing the
> buffers).
I was always careful, trained my clients to be, and never had a problem.
Careful would not protect you if you had a disk write error during delayed
writes (you were slightly lucky), but it WOULD NOT protect you from
turning off the machine before writes after it came back to the prompt on
exiting a program. "I'm DONE! SAVE. EXIT. At the prompt? Hit the power
switch!" Agood reason for implementing the "shutdown procedure"! Yeah. That's sorta analogous to people
preferring IDE because it's
"simpler" because it "doesn't need all those silly terminators and
stuff". It actually DID need terminators...but they were never
implemented due to a stellar combination of cheapness and cluelessness.
Terminators on IDE? Really?
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
7:08 a.m.
New subject: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
On Sep 10, 2012, at 9:36 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
Terminators on IDE? Really?
Certainly. It's in the ANSI standard. It works "well enough" without
them, especially considering the limited length of a typical IDE cable,
but even at that length there are transmission line effects and term
resistors would certainly be ideal.
- Dave
12:53 p.m.
New subject: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
On 10 September 2012 14:36, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
Many years later, running a VAX network in the mid-1990s, I was amazed
to discover that VMS did not include a disk cache. It was a
/seriously/ expensive extra - thousands of pounds - but batch
performance went through the roof when I tried a time-limited demo of
one. We bought it PDQ.
Mmmm... "prestoserve".
Battery backed up ram for speeding up sync disk writes, typically on a
DECstation or Sun Sparc box. Handy for general use, but quite awesome
for NFS.
Of course SGI provided fast NFS servers by just lying to the client
and saying sync writes had hit disk as soon as it was in (non backed
up) memory cache. That was a *whole* heap of fun at $PREVIOUS_JOB when
the O2000 servers decided to panic every few hours due to buggy Fore
system ATM drivers - that 1GB of asset data the 300 workstations think
was safely written back? Well, I hope you like nulls...
7:25 a.m.
New subject: IDE terminators [Re: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1]
[IDE] actually DID need terminators...
I'm not sure what meaning of "need" this is, when, out of all the
IDE-using systems I've seen, I can't recall even one that had
terminators.
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
8:38 a.m.
New subject: IDE terminators [Re: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1]
On 09/10/2012 10:25 AM, Mouse wrote:
Me neither. The definition of "need" here is that, electrically, they
are required by the design, but the designers, either due to cheapness,
cluelessness, or both, omitted them.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
[IDE] actually
DID need terminators...
I'm not sure what meaning of "need" this is, when, out of all the
IDE-using systems I've seen, I can't recall even one that had
terminators.
8:47 a.m.
New subject: IDE terminators [Re: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1]
On Sep 10, 2012, at 11:38 AM, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 09/10/2012 10:25 AM, Mouse wrote:
Me neither. The definition of "need" here is that, electrically, they
are required by the design, but the designers, either due to cheapness,
cluelessness, or both, omitted them.
It's probably worth clarifying that the ANSI spec calls for termination
(not necessarily discrete terminators). One ordinarily needs discrete
terminators, or an on-drive workalike as implemented in many SCSI drives,
in a bus because you don't want every device providing termination
(besides dragging down the bus, you'll still be throwing the impedance
off and so will get reflections anyway). In practice, most ATA cables
are short enough that it almost doesn't matter because the standard only
supports two drives per cable; SCSI is, obviously, a very different case.
- Dave
[IDE]
actually DID need terminators...
I'm not sure what meaning of "need" this is, when, out of all the
IDE-using systems I've seen, I can't recall even one that had
terminators. 
12:18 p.m.
New subject: IDE terminators [Re: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1]
[IDE] actually DID need terminators...
I'm not sure what meaning of "need" this is, when, out of all the
IDE-using systems I've seen, I can't recall even one that had
terminators.
12:52 p.m.
New subject: IDE terminators [Re: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1]
> > [IDE] actually DID need terminators...
> I'm not sure what meaning of "need" this is, when, out of all the
> IDE-using systems I've seen, I can't recall even one that had
> terminators.
I think that this may be an example of "can get away with"
8:33 p.m.
New subject: IDE terminators [Re: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1]
[IDE] actually DID need terminators...
I'm
not sure what meaning of "need" this is, when, out of all the
IDE-using systems I've seen, I can't recall even one that had
terminators. My point being that while there may not be resistor
packs for the
user to fit/remove (as with SCSI and 5.25" floppy drives) ,there may
well be 'rather too high' termination resisotrs [...]
There may be, for all I know. I was speaking of `terminator' as a
separate physical object, not just anything with a similar electrical
effect. I'd use the same terminology even for (eg) SCSI; "no, there's
no terminator because I enabled on-disk termination on that drive" is a
sensical statement, IMO - and, in this case, the context (users seeing
IDE as not needing those pesky terminators) makes that interpretation
even more reasonable, I think.
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
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9 Sep
9 Sep
9:53 a.m.
New subject: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
On Sun, 9 Sep 2012, Liam Proven wrote:
My recollection was $110M and $30M, but that could be completely wrong.
(unrefreshed unreliable dynamic RAM)
Both companies were a little too free with sharing the trade secrets
BEFORE the deal was finalized.
It would have helped if I were to have listed all of the intermediate
steps originally.
<pedantic>
<! More than any sane person would care about>
As well it should! There's GOTTA BE A BETTER WAY!
Nothing written, . . .
In 1.10, if one were to have run the CHKDKSK from 1.00 it would obligingly
"FIX" the disk into an almost irreparable mess, through lack of
understanding that there existed a DS disk format that it was unaware of.
In 2.00? they started having EVERY DOS program check which version was
running and refuse to run if it wasn't the "right" one. (Even if there
were no differences that would matter) THAT resulted in the addition of
SETVER later on (6.00?)
When I encountered that in 2.00 V 2.10, I followed up on it.
2.00 returned 0002
2.10 returned 0A02
2.11 returned 0B02
3.00 0003
3.10 0A03
3.20 1403
3.30 1E03
3.31 1F03
I had a copy of 4.01 that returned 0004! It was widely considered
to be "buggy" (although the biggest "bug" was that Nortun fUtilities
If MICROS~1 were to have admitted that SMARTDRV should NOT have such an
agressive default configuration (and fixed it with an AUTOEXEC line?),
thet would not have had to do the FREE 6.20 "step-up", and then the
re-release without disk compression infringement might have been 6.20, . . .
Did their stubbornness and the resulting public assumption that disk
compression was unreliable and flawed really save them much face?
</pedantic>
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
I taught people to do Ctrl-Alt-Del and wait for the
BIOS screen,
*then* power off.
Still risky with SMARTDRV's write-cacheing!
Most people had been taught that on exiting their "productivity software"
to wait until they got the4 DOS prompt b3efore shutting off. THAT was
the disaster. Many didn't even realize that they should watch the lights
on the drives!
But to be fair, lots of OSs had problems if you turned
off without
shutting down. It's just that MS-DOS was so rudimentary that it didn't
/have/ a shutdown procedure and so users weren't accustomed to this.
Yes. MS-DOS had NO shutdown procedure at all. Even when hard disk
arrived (DOS 2.00), "PARK" programs were third party! (could be done in a
few dozen bytes) IBM had a park program on their DIAGNOSTICS DISK, but
MICROS~1 never pro0vided one. Q: Does shutdown on Windoze9x park the
heads? properly?
but awarded
MICROS~1 about $30
million in their counter-suit.
Didn't know that. NO. in 6.22
OK, agreed. My memory from nearly 20y ago is clearly more fallible
than I realised. NB: There was
never a Six point ONE. Nor a six point TWO. It was Six
point TEN, and Six point TWENTY.
My meagre inner mathematician shudders at such
usage. MOV AH, 30h
INT 21h
returned 6 in AL and 0Ah or 1.4h in AH
Microsoft version numbers are an integer "MAJOR" number, a "full
stop",
followed by a TWO digit decimal number for "MINOR" number
There WAS a DOS "Four point one" (4.01), but never a 4.1 (4.10)
Got a
reference? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I've /never/ heard this usage.
from earilier days didn't grasp the changes made
for >32M drives done
in MS-DOS 3.31 (1F03) and PC-DOS 4.00 (0004)) InfoWorld:
"New PC-DOS 4
is buggy! Won't run Norton!" (The great motorcycle company should have
sued Peter Norton for tradename dilution and defamation (as Beretta sued
Chevrolet?)
6.00 0006
6.10 0A06
6.20 1406
6.21 1506
6.22 1606
It held true, up until Win95 (0007)
SETVER was for the sole purpose of over-riding trhe version number
checking, so that when a program did INT21h,Fn30h, DOS would lie about its
age, with a small database stored IN SETVER to keep track of which lie to
tell which program!
I made my beginning assembly language students write their own VER
program. THEIR program had to display a sentence.
Go into DEBUG, (and do NOT type in the comments!)
A ; enter assembling mode
MOV AH, 30 ; set AH to 30h to select function
INT 21 ; DOS functions
INT 3 ; end program (breakpoint) and display registers
; hit enter to get out of assembling mode
G ; RUN
(reset IP/PC to 0100
R PC
100
if you want to run it again, INT 3 leaves the registers unchanged.)
Microsoft
would never admit that SMARTDRV had problems, but it was
actually the ONLY (or at least PRIMARY) factor!
Certainly willing to believe that!
10:51 a.m.
New subject: Why 'park' drive heads Re: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
On Sun, 9 Sep 2012, Fred Cisin wrote:
Yes. MS-DOS had NO shutdown procedure at all. Even
when hard disk
arrived (DOS 2.00), "PARK" programs were third party! (could be done in a
few dozen bytes) IBM had a park program on their DIAGNOSTICS DISK, but
MICROS~1 never pro0vided one. Q: Does shutdown on Windoze9x park the
heads? properly?
So, what drives actually need to be 'parked'? My understanding was that if
you de-energize the spindle motor and the voice coil that positions the
heads and the same time, the heads will have plenty of time to retract and
lock before the platters slow down enough for the heads to land. Was it
only needed on drives that used stepper motors for head positioning?
Either way, in what technology generation and/or time frame did the
requirement go away?
Alexey
11:22 a.m.
New subject: Why 'park' drive heads Re: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
it never has.WD uses it today in it's latest technology 3TB drives.rather aggressive
head parking feature, if the drive is idle for 5 seconds,it parks the heads.and
there's no way to avoid this or alter the behavior,this accounts for a LCC count of
about 8k per 24 hour period on average use.which means when you reach the LCC count of
300K, the drive is dead.
what a wonderfully stupid idea.
Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2012 17:51:13 +0000
From: alexeyt at freeshell.org
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Why 'park' drive heads Re: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro
1
On Sun, 9 Sep 2012, Fred Cisin wrote:
Yes. MS-DOS had NO shutdown procedure at all.
Even when hard disk
arrived (DOS 2.00), "PARK" programs were third party! (could be done in a
few dozen bytes) IBM had a park program on their DIAGNOSTICS DISK, but
MICROS~1 never pro0vided one. Q: Does shutdown on Windoze9x park the
heads? properly?
So, what drives actually need to be 'parked'? My understanding was that if
you de-energize the spindle motor and the voice coil that positions the
heads and the same time, the heads will have plenty of time to retract and
lock before the platters slow down enough for the heads to land. Was it
only needed on drives that used stepper motors for head positioning?
Either way, in what technology generation and/or time frame did the
requirement go away?
Alexey 
12:56 p.m.
New subject: Why 'park' drive heads Re: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
Certain drives do not "park" the head, but lift them so they do not
contact the surface when not spinning.
--Chuck
2:44 p.m.
New subject: Why 'park' drive heads Re: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
On Sun, 9 Sep 2012, Dan Gahlinger wrote:
it never has.WD uses it today in it's latest technology 3TB
drives.rather aggressive head parking feature, if the drive is idle for
5 seconds,it parks the heads.and there's no way to avoid this or alter
the behavior,this accounts for a LCC count of about 8k per 24 hour
period on average use.which means when you reach the LCC count of 300K,
the drive is dead. what a wonderfully stupid idea.
Stupid for us. Sells more drives for them.
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
3:50 p.m.
New subject: Why 'park' drive heads Re: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Gahlinger" <dgahling at hotmail.com>
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2012 2:22 PM
Subject: RE: Why 'park' drive heads Re: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ?
== Micro 1
"it never has.WD uses it today in it's latest technology 3TB drives.rather
aggressive head parking feature, if the drive is idle for 5 seconds,it parks
the heads.and there's no way to avoid this or alter the behavior,this
accounts for a LCC count of about 8k per 24 hour period on average use.which
means when you reach the LCC count of 300K, the drive is dead.
what a wonderfully stupid idea."
So those drives last an average of 37.5 days of use?
4:40 p.m.
New subject: Why 'park' drive heads Re: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
On 9/9/12 1:22 PM, Dan Gahlinger wrote:
it never has.WD uses it today in it's latest technology 3TB
drives.rather aggressive head parking feature, if the drive is idle
for 5 seconds,it parks the heads.and there's no way to avoid this or
alter the behavior,this accounts for a LCC count of about 8k per 24
hour period on average use.which means when you reach the LCC count
of 300K, the drive is dead. what a wonderfully stupid idea.
Citations, please.
Doc
6 p.m.
New subject: Why 'park' drive heads Re: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
Start by googling "WD30EZRX" which is the latest model green 3TB drive from WD
right off the bat you'll see some links talking about the problem I'm referring
to,which btw made me decide to stay away from it...
here's some example links:
http://koitsu.wordpress.com/2012/05/30/wd30ezrx-and-aggressive-head-parking/
http://community.wdc.com/t5/Desktop-Portable-Drives/WD30EZRX-Load-unload-ve…
the second one has some examples of exactly what I was talking about, high LCC counts.once
you reach the drive limit, there goes your drive (or at least your warranty) which to me
is the same thing.
seems the only way around it would be to keep the drive heads busy, keep them from being
idle for more than 5 seconds,which is not actually a solution at all...
Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2012 18:40:12 -0500
From: doc at vaxen.net
To:
Subject: Re: Why 'park' drive heads Re: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? ==
Micro 1
On 9/9/12 1:22 PM, Dan Gahlinger wrote:
it never has.WD uses it today in it's latest technology 3TB
drives.rather aggressive head parking feature, if the drive is idle
for 5 seconds,it parks the heads.and there's no way to avoid this or
alter the behavior,this accounts for a LCC count of about 8k per 24
hour period on average use.which means when you reach the LCC count
of 300K, the drive is dead. what a wonderfully stupid idea.
Citations, please.
Doc 
6:41 p.m.
New subject: Why 'park' drive heads Re: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
On 9/9/2012 6:00 PM, Dan Gahlinger wrote:
<quoting Doc actually>
LCC count
> >of 300K, t
The reference I found referred to 2 1/2 inch laptop drives as
being
kaput with this cycle count. Other references said 600k. I have not
found anywhere that says the drive says kaput with the count, just that
the s.m.a.r.t. monitoring software flags it as a problem when it goes up.
Anyone have any WD postings on the problem yet, perhaps firmware release
notes for the affected drives might change the problem?
Jim
11:23 a.m.
New subject: Why 'park' drive heads Re: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
So, what drives actually need to be 'parked'?
My understanding was that if
you de-energize the spindle motor and the voice coil that positions the
heads and the same time, the heads will have plenty of time to retract and
lock before the platters slow down enough for the heads to land. Was it
only needed on drives that used stepper motors for head positioning?
Either way, in what technology generation and/or time frame did the
requirement go away?
Drives NEED to be parked into a "safe landing" area. But newer drives
(e.g.: anything voice-coil based) park automatically the heads when the
voice coils are de-energized. Older drivers (with stepper motor used for
head positioning) needs to be parked. IIRC, it was in the innermost area of
the disk.
Greetz,
Alexandre Souza
1:14 p.m.
New subject: Why 'park' drive heads Re: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
On Sun, 9 Sep 2012, Alexey Toptygin wrote:
So, what drives actually need to be 'parked'?
My understanding was that if
you de-energize the spindle motor and the voice coil that positions the
heads and the same time, the heads will have plenty of time to retract and
lock before the platters slow down enough for the heads to land. Was it
only needed on drives that used stepper motors for head positioning?
Either way, in what technology generation and/or time frame did the
requirement go away?
XT drives generally had stepper motors, and VERY few had a "self park"
feature as you describe. Yes, I know that you CAN put some IDE drives on
a controller on a 5160, and you could probably build a USB interface, or
even ATA. I'm talking about 506/412 interfaced MFM drives as existed in
the days of MS-DOS 2.00, and many of which were still around up until
Win95
10 Sep
10 Sep
6:40 a.m.
New subject: Win (or lose) 3.10 (Was: Kaypro PC ? == Micro 1
On 9 September 2012 17:53, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
On Sun, 9 Sep 2012, Liam Proven wrote:
True.
I taught people to do Ctrl-Alt-Del and wait for
the BIOS screen,
*then* power off.
Still risky with SMARTDRV's write-cacheing!
Most people had been taught that on exiting their "productivity software"
to wait until they got the4 DOS prompt b3efore shutting off. THAT was
the disaster. Many didn't even realize that they should watch the lights
on the drives! Yes. MS-DOS had NO shutdown procedure at all. Even
when hard disk
arrived (DOS 2.00), "PARK" programs were third party! (could be done in a
few dozen bytes) IBM had a park program on their DIAGNOSTICS DISK, but
MICROS~1 never pro0vided one. Q: Does shutdown on Windoze9x park the
heads? properly?
The thing that bemused me, when I learned about it, was PARK programs
that ran /and then exited./
Once it quit, if it re-displayed a DOS prompt, then assuming you had
the bog-standard DOS prompt of $p$g, it displayed, say, C:\DOS> - and
that itself would cause a disk access, undoing the Park operation!
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
7 Sep
7 Sep
6:57 a.m.
On Thu, 6 Sep 2012, Dave Flowers wrote:
I don't know if anyone is still interested in
this. I have a Kaypro Micro1
with monitor and keyboard. It has a 10 MB hard drive and runs on MS DOS 5.0
and Windows 3.1. It has 2 3.5" floppy drives. I've never seen another one
anyplace.
Dave, do you have any pictures of the machine?
tnx.
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Buying desktop hardware and installing a server OS doesn't make a
server-class system any more than sitting in a puddle makes you a duck.
[Cipher in a.s.r]
4487
days inactive
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32 comments
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