Re: Question & Suggestion

[mark@trillian.jsc.nasa.gov (Mark Manning)]

In article <1993Dec23.161530.21120@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE>,
behrenss@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE (Soenke Behrens) wrote:

[Stuff Deleted]

> : Suggestion:
> : Make the 3.5" disk drives work like the 5.25" disk drive with the
> : exception that when the window is closed on a 3.5" disk drive that
> : the disk ejects.  >>>OR<<<  Simply allow the user to press the
> : eject button themselves.  It's not really all that hard to do. :)
> 
> Huh? What? I'm confused. Why would you want to make the 3.5" drives
> work like the 5.25"? I.e., you wish that the user has to tell the computer
> that a disk is there? That's stupid.
> 
> Besides, you can press the eject button yourself. And I think the fact that
> the disk icon remains on the desktop, dimmed, is a definite pro. I hate
> the way the Amiga takes the disk icon away after you ejected a disk ...

No, it isn't stupid.  When I boot my system, I have a 3.5" unidisk, 2
5.25" floppy drives, and a 40meg partitioned up into two 20megs (one for
ProDOS 16 and one for ProDOS 8).  The 5.25" drives simply sit there and
never poll.  I can put in a diskette, double click on the 5.25" and
it then reads the disk.  I can then do whatever I want with the disk and,
when I'm through, I simply close the window and pull out the disk. 
Wouldn't
it be nice to have the 3.5" drive do the same?  After all, every time the
3.5" drive is spun up, there is a chance that the read/write head will
leave a scratch on the disk, or the 3.5" drive will have a part failure.
But making the 3.5" drive continuously start/stop, you up the failure
rate considerably.  Whereas if the 3.5" disk drive simply sat there like
the 5.25" and didn't attempt to read the disk except when I double-clicked
on the icon, then my disk drive might just last a little longer.

If this is a "PCT" thing, then that's ok with me.  All I know is, is that
this is annoying and probably wasteful of something which is not that
cheap to repair.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I saw a mountain rising.  Rising above the sea.  I heard the wind calling. 
Calling unto me.  Oh, who has seen the sunset?  Who has seen it rise?  Who
could ever be so blind?  As to never open their eyes? - Mark Manning

mark@trillian.jsc.nasa.gov