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Re: Question about modifying DOS 3.3 or ProDOS



Ah. I was just curious. I assume that means there's not a simple poke I can 
enter to change the time DOS moves the head in an I/O error condition? It's 
not really that I hate the noise, I just think DOS wastes a lot of time, 
since in most cases, moving back a few tracks would result in a valid track, 
unless the drive door is open, no disk is inserted, or the disk is damaged 
or not formatted.
Jayson

"Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote in message 
a4-dnXGourxKb9vWnZ2dnUVZ_o6dnZ2d@giganews.com">news:a4-dnXGourxKb9vWnZ2dnUVZ_o6dnZ2d@giganews.com...
> Jayson Smith wrote:
>> On a somewhat related topic, I've always hated the way DOS 3.3 goes 
>> "BZZZZZZZZZZZ!" when recalibrating the drive after a read/write error. Is 
>> there any way to shorten the time DOS moves the head toward track 0, so 
>> as to possibly eliminate the buzzing in some circumstances? I much prefer 
>> the way ProDos does this, going back a few tracks instead of making 
>> absolutely sure the head is at track 0, and probably going way too far 
>> overboard in most situations.
>> Jayson
>
> It doesn't go that much "overboard", since the seek cam _could_ be
> up around "track 40" and you have to seek back far enough to hit
> the track 0 stop.
>
> Of course, you could always seek back until you found a track/sector
> mark that you could read, then go again from there.
>
> It would be possible to make a full recalibrate quieter, by half- stepping 
> or even micro-stepping back against the stop, but it would
> take more code space.
>
> But it really doesn't matter.  The drive is absolutely not injured in
> any way by repeatedly stepping back beyond track 0.  If you don't like
> the noise, get a half-height drive with a quieter stop or a track 0
> switch that disables backward seeks.  ;-)
>
> -michael
>
> NadaNet and AppleCrate II: parallel computing for Apple II computers!
> Home page: http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon
>
> "The wastebasket is our most important design
> tool--and it's seriously underused."