Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!ucbvax!bloom-beacon!mcgill-vision!clyde.concordia.ca!ccu.umanitoba.ca!umcarls9
From: umcarls9@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Charles Carlson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: Serial safety; HD inteleave
Message-ID: <1990Sep25.042714.25505@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Date: 25 Sep 90 04:27:14 GMT
References: <1990Sep20.123824@miguel.llnl.gov>
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
Lines: 35

In article <1990Sep20.123824@miguel.llnl.gov> macq@miguel.llnl.gov (Don MacQueen) writes:
>
>1)  Many articles have warned against plugging in/unpluggin ADB cables
>while the Mac is on.  What about the modem cable?  I sometimes want to
>unplug my modem cable from its line to a local mainframe and plug it
>back in to the serial port of a PC (with null modem) for file transfer. 
>Is there a danger of hardware damage?

Been plugging/unplugging serial cables to/from PCs and Macs for years.  Never
had a single problem with it.  Only time I ever lost a serial port was when
lightening struck the phone line, hit the modem and into the serial port.
Luckily it stopped there.  Never heard a modem scream so in my life.
The modem was toast, but the serial port was fixed for $1.89.

>2)  Many articles discuss interleave re hard disk read/write speed (eg
>MacPlus 3:1, SE 2:1, others 1:1).  None that I've read say
>when/where/what establishes the interleave.  Is it done at disk format
>time (with disks sold preformatted I've never needed to format a disk)? 
>by the device driver software?  In short, how do I find out if I have
>the right interleave, and if not, change it?

Interleave is set during the low level initialization.  There are typically
two types of formatting.  Low level which is done first, then the high level
which is specific to the operating system.   
To look at/change the interleave you need a low level formatting program.
Your hard drive more than likely came with one that does this, but 
it might not let you set or even see the interleave.   A good utility
for that is Silver Lining. 

Does anyone know if Norton Utilities allows you to look at/change the
interleave without reformatting?

Charles