Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!mdisea!jackb
From: jackb@MDI.COM (Jack Brindle)
Subject: Re: Making my mac wait for my hd to get up to speed?
Message-ID: <1991Jun21.163417.24604@MDI.COM>
Sender: news@MDI.COM
Organization: Motorola, Mobile Data Division - Seattle, WA
References: <12145@hub.ucsb.edu> <0094A6A8.B6394460@uclapp.physics.ucla.edu>
Distribution: comp
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 1991 16:34:17 GMT
Lines: 20

In article <12145@hub.ucsb.edu>, 6600dayl@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (Darryl "NOT Ug" Lee) writes:
>i remember hearing about an init that would make my computer wait to
>boot until my slow (CMS 20 meg) hard drive was up to speed. 

I'm really not trying to flame the originator, but...  Can someone explain
to me just how a piece of code residing on the boot disk can be
executed before the boot disk is mounted? I suspect that this wierd
rumor started as part of an April fools joke.

As I recall, there was a problem on the original Mac Plus that caused
the plus to repeatedly reset the scsi bus while scanning for bootable
drives. Some drives would react to the reset, recalibrate, and take
even longer to come up. This was fixed when the platinum pluses came
out, and the ROMs were slightly changed (just 13 bytes as I recall).
Now it should actually wait for a slow drive, and come up when the
drive is ready (as long as another bootable drive isn't found first).

JackB.
ham radio: wa4fib/7