Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!unido!incas!kuebler
From: kuebler@incas
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: The DANGERS of TURBO-DOS - (nf)
Message-ID: <4300009@incas.UUCP>
Date: 19 Apr 88 13:23:00 GMT
References: <451@nikhefh.UUCP>
Lines: 30
Nf-ID: #R:nikhefh:-45100:incas:4300009:000:1408
Nf-From: incas!kuebler    Apr 19 14:23:00 1988

Written  8:57 pm  Apr 15, 1988 by apratt@atari
> > This wouldn't be a problem on a hard-disk, would it?
> 
> Unfortunately, yes: just as your thumb is hardware which can eject a
> disk, your forefinger can reset the machine.  This can happen with
> more regularity (say) than on a UNIX system, because it's so easy
> to lock up the system from a stupid user program and force a reboot.
> 
> The only bad thing which could happen with the ROM GEMDOS is unclosed,
> newly-written-to files will be lost, and the data clusters either remain
> free or are orphaned.  But if TurboDOS delays writes even longer, you
> could lose a lot more. 
> 
> I encourage people not to use TurboDOS -- I know I wouldn't trust my
> hard disk to it.  If they didn't think media-change through, what else
> didn't they do?

Some weeks ago I wrote a program to speed up the fat access when writing
to harddisks. Unlike turbodos it is not replacing the file system of gemdos,
but replaces the routine which searches for free clusters. No disk caching
is done. It uses 30 k ram space; also included is a fix to the bombing
C(con|prn|aux)out when redirected.
So if anyone doesn't want to use turbodos because of its disadvantages,
but is tyred of slow writing to his harddisk, he may be interested in this
program. Tell me, and I will mail it.

Uli Kuebler
University of Kaiserslautern
West-Germany
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