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From: metcalf@ucbmiro.ARPA (Chris Metcalf)
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: DOS PROMPT command and disk drive
Message-ID: <28@ucbmiro.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 15-Jun-85 05:23:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbmiro.28
Posted: Sat Jun 15 05:23:59 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Jun-85 03:12:47 EDT
References: <547@alberta.UUCP>
Reply-To: metcalf@ucbmiro.UUCP (Chris metcalf)
Distribution: net
Organization: U.C. Berkeley
Lines: 27

In article <547@alberta.UUCP> andrew@alberta.UUCP (Andrew Folkins) writes:
>I was trying out the fancy prompt distributed on the net a while ago and
>found something a bit unusual.  ... The problem showed up with the prompt :
> 
>  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. 

The problem is one you can always encounter with MS-DOS prompting with
the current directory.  When there's no disk in the drive, MS-DOS (obviously)
can't find the current directory.  When you abort from the error message,
what is the first thing MS-DOS does?  It gives you the prompt.  But you're
prompting with the current directory, so MS-DOS reports an error ... 
(continue ad nauseum).

This is not a problem unique to ANSI.SYS or even MS-DOS.  As far as I know,
the easiest way out of such a problem is to stick a disk in the drive.

	Chris Metcalf
	ARPA: metcalf@ucbmiro.BERKELEY
	USENET: ...!ucbvax!ucbmiro!metcalf