Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!ptimtc!nntp-server.caltech.edu!toddpw
From: toddpw@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: The GS Axe is Not Falling
Message-ID: <1991Apr26.204608.1052@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Date: 26 Apr 91 20:46:08 GMT
References: <656@generic.UUCP>
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Lines: 27

taob@pnet91.cts.com (Brian Tao) writes:

>drive on even a single-user computer, most of your data will be on the hard
>drive, with perhaps a not-so-recent backup elsewhere.  If my hard drive went
>down, I would not be able to do any work, since all my data is on there, and
>the backups locked away on floppy.  So let's say I'm working on a large
>programming project and I lose the HD.  What am I supposed to do with a cheesy
>built-in text editor or terminal?  Diddle away while I figure out what to do? 

Dammit, that's not what I'm talking about. I NEVER said you could just keep
doing your HD-based work as if nothing happened!! That's such a ludicrous
idea I never realized people were interpreting it as that until now.

What I am talking about is the basic futz work everybody does: memo's, logging
in to remote machines to read mail, news, program, or whatever, that sort of
thing. Scratch calculations, rough graphs, tiny diddle programs to see what
such-and-such and algorithm would do. None of them REQUIRE a storage device
because they are stepping stone jobs that are completed and then forgotten.

A computer without a disk can and "should" still be useful as a terminal
(and a damn nice one at that), a 'print shop' (crude, perhaps, but better than
nothing), a programmable calculator with graphing capability (even if you have
to take five minutes to write the graphing function yourself), and ideally a
set of common DA type things like alarm clocks, calendars, and so on.

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ tybalt.caltech.edu