Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!labrea!rocky!ali
From: ali@rocky.STANFORD.EDU (Ali Ozer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Some ideas for KS/WB 1.3
Message-ID: <1012@rocky.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: 3 Feb 88 17:45:20 GMT
References: <8801251900.AA00551@cory.Berkeley.EDU> <2512@swan.ulowell.edu> <2293@gryphon.CTS.COM> <644@gethen.UUCP>
Reply-To: ali@rocky.UUCP (Ali Ozer)
Organization: Stanford University Computer Science Department
Lines: 30

In article <644@gethen.UUCP> farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren) writes:
>>Possibly better, would be a system requester saying
>>"Disk in drive dfx: is BAD...format?" with the usual OK/Cancel gadget..
>Ala Macintosh, you mean? ...

I just overheard yesterday how this one guy lost a month's worth of work
when he replied "OK" to the "disk is unreadable... initialize?" question...
Sounded like he just thought the Mac was going to "initialize" the disk
(whatever that might mean to a person who just word-processes and hasn't
bothered to read or find out anything about the machine)
as opposed to "totally erase and get rid of everything on it." Well now he
knows, I guess, but he didn't sound too happy telling this to his friend.
The friend sounded more knowledgable --- he asked about backups --- and the
first guy had no idea what those were...

Anyway, the automatic "format?" question is nice when you put in a brand new
disk (or a non-Amiga disk), but for corrupted floppies it should not replace
the "disk is corrupted --- use DISKDOCTOR" requester. Or if it does, it should
be clear that the operation will totally get rid of every file on the disk.
Otherwise you'll always get some people who, like the above person, totally
manage to destroy their disk with a single click of the mouse.

-----
On another note --- in my previous message I mentioned "DigiAdaptor" and
said it digitizes stuff from a VCR --- just so that people don't get the
wrong idea: You still need DigiView. And that's all I know about it! But I'd
like to find out more, if anyone knows more...
-----

Ali Ozer, ali@rocky.stanford.edu