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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!alberta!andrew
From: andrew@alberta.UUCP (Andrew Folkins)
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: DOS PROMPT command and disk drive
Message-ID: <547@alberta.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Jun-85 19:17:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: alberta.547
Posted: Thu Jun 13 19:17:05 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Jun-85 05:49:15 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: U. of Alberta, Edmonton, AB
Lines: 33

I was trying out the fancy prompt distributed on the net a while ago and
found something a bit unusual.  Normally, when changing disk drives (in
my case from hard disk c: to floppy a:) the only noticeable change is the
prompt, the floppy drive itself is not activated.  This occurs with 
the prompt set to '$e33;40m$n$g'.
 
The problem showed up with the prompt : 
 
  $e[33;40m$e[s$e[0;0H$p    $d    $t$e[K$e[u$n$g
 
  set color|save cursor position|home|display directory, date, time|erase
  to end of line|restore cursor position|display drive>
 
With this prompt, the command 'a:' activates the floppy drive.  When, by
mistake, I did this with no floppy in the drive, the cursor homed, and the
'drive not ready' message printed. Upon entering 'a' for abort, the cursor
homed again while the drive spun some more, then the 'drive not ready'
message was repeated.  The only way to get out of the loop was to
reset the machine. 
 
I understand the disk access, the prompt requires the current directory.
But why doesn't the abort work when the drive is not ready? It seems that
the drive error routine that produces this message only takes one character
from the keyboard, so how is the prompt screwing this up? This is inside a
DOS routine, the prompt shouldn't have anything to do with it! Is ansi.sys
doing weird things?

-- 
Andrew Folkins
ihnp4!alberta!andrew
 
Underlying Principle of Socio-Genetics : 
       Superiority is recessive.