Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!decvax!ucbvax!CORY.BERKELEY.EDU!dillon
From: dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Semicoherent flame about Amigados.
Message-ID: <8802110359.AA02000@cory.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 11 Feb 88 03:59:13 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 18

>Please, after you finish the fast file system... get a reliable on. It doesn't
>have to be big: 720K per diskette would be fine. But it needs to have real
>sectors to act as firewalls when corruption occurs (as it invariably does).

	Silly, they *are* real sectors... they simply do not have the
*space* normally put between sectors.  The problem is with the way AmigaDOS
and the trackdisk.device handle it. 

	One major improvment, and one reason why IBM-PC harddisks/floppies
seem more reliable, is to put in lots of self-checking in the software... "do
I *really* want to do this operation.. lets check this structure checksum here,
that structure checksum over there ... ho hum, I guess it's ok, start the DMA".

	Another reason PC disk drivers seem more reliable is the inherent
single tasking nature of the PC.. it usually doesn't freeze in the middle of
a disk operation.

					-Matt