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From: sansom@trwrb.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Twister
Message-ID: <1716@trwrb.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 23-Mar-87 20:58:32 EST
Article-I.D.: trwrb.1716
Posted: Mon Mar 23 20:58:32 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 26-Mar-87 07:39:08 EST
References: <870323095359.3.CLJ@OOGLE-BOID.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Reply-To: sansom@trwrb.UUCP (Richard Sansom)
Distribution: world
Organization: TRW EDS, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 28

In article <870323095359.3.CLJ@OOGLE-BOID.SCRC.Symbolics.COM> clj@SAPSUCKER.SCRC.SYMBOLICS.COM (Chris Jones) writes:
> ...I guess from looking at the numbers that this causes cylinders 80
> and 81 to be used, but I'd rather hear it from the horse's mouth, so to
> speak...I also have not noticed a measurable speedup after formatting
> a DS disk with twister...

The fix involves changing the number of tracks formatted.  I've got an ugly
version of 410K/820K Twister working now, but can't really post it because
it is definitely not in the public domain.  Once I'm through, I may post
diffs so that those of you who bought the Spring START disk can make the
change.

About the speed:  you'll only notice the speed difference when the programs
doing the disk access are "well behaved".  For instance: use a "standard"
disk to load a copy of ST Basic (yech).  Measure how long it takes to load.
Now do the same with a Twisted disk (I kinda like that sound of that).  It
_should_ be about twice as fast.  If it isn't, then your version of Twister
doesn't work (for reasons unknown).  Programs like VIP should do their disk
access using large buffers, but they don't always.  As bad as GEMdog is, it
_is_ smart enough to write large blocks of data to the disk as fast as the
disk can take them.

-Rich
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