Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ucsd!rutgers!iuvax!bobmon
From: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Leaving the hard disk on continuously
Summary: (wild speculation)
Keywords: hard disk park
Message-ID: <10806@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 19 Jul 88 15:32:39 GMT
References: <12184@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <837@lakesys.UUCP>
Reply-To: bobmon@iuvax.UUCP (RAMontante)
Organization: Computer Science Dept., Indiana University
Lines: 19

A lot of people are telling the originator of this question that all he has
to do is issue another instruction to unpark the drive head -- I've seen at
least one head-parking program, named SHIP, that was intended to be used as
the last operation before moving the computer.  Because of this one-
dimensional thinking, the program parks the head, and then goes into a tight
machine-code loop in which it ignores minor irritants like the keyboard.

The head could be easily unparked.  You merely can't get the computer's
attention to do so, so you have to reboot.  A silly way to write the program,
but there it is.

There's a TSR called pdtimprk, by Dick Flanagan of this net, that works fine
except for being automatic-only.  When I DO want to park the head, power-down,
and run for the storm shelter, I still need to use SHIP.  No problem.
(There's at least one more, called timepark, by Sanford Zelkovitz, which
seems to work.  Both are public domain, both come with .asm source, but
pdtimprk is smaller and I'm memory-tight.)
-- 
--	bob,mon				(bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu)
--	"In this position, the skier is flying in a complete stall..."