Re: What cables can be hot-plugged?

[A2Aviator <a2aviator@gmail.com>]

I've pretty much always done anything inbuilt on the back of the //c
and  IIgs generally except the floppy, hot or cold. I've swapped Disk
II controllers, SSC's, and other simple circuit stuff like that too,
on 8 bit hardware. But not the IIgs.

SCSI, I try to do it power off, but have done it quite a bit powered
on, though a Three Finger Salute is usually required afterwards, but
not always.

I have added disk drives to ProDOS 8, DOS 3.3 via hot swap, but not GS/
OS or Mac OS as they generally don't see them without a restart. I'm
swift and fast with slot cards, as the article says, you just do it
with confidence. Done.

Now, for the freak show - I used to do this at school .. when they
were not looking, but other kids were ;-)

Open the II Plus or //e, boot to BASIC with an operating system,
catalog the disk, and then take it out and hand it to someone and open
the top of the computer and take the drive controller out and put it
in and out of every slot in the same way I've described above, from 1
to 7 and back again, skipping any occupied slots usually, but
sometimes I'd yank the SSC or Grappler/etc., that was typically there,
and then go back to the slot it started in, put it back and ask for
another disk. Not the same one I had in there. There were always disks
in the room. Put it in and CATALOG it, to show the drive was working
for real, because it's not the same catalog I started with and I
really couldn't simulate or 'fake' it as I had no clue what disk
anyone would give me.

... so when someone else tried it, we ended up getting to drive to a
computer store in a nearby city during lunch .. to get more chips
after I figured out what they popped by swapping from another II Plus,
that time. This was 1985 or so.