Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!portal!atari!apratt
From: apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Re: ibm pc disk (LOTS OF DETAIL by Allan Pratt)
Message-ID: <1160@atari.UUCP>
Date: 6 Sep 88 20:24:57 GMT
References: <8809051032.AA07013@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Reply-To: apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt)
Organization: Atari (US) Corporation, Sunnyvale, California
Lines: 36

I hope I can quench the flames about this FAST...

To summarize "GWDGV1::WHUEBNER":

> 1) the IBM PC don't like a disk formatted with the new TOS release ...
> 
> 2) it seems that pressing ESC didn't flush all buffers...
> 
>[3] [open a window, pop the disk, change it on a different ST, put
>    it back in the original ST and do something.]

First and most importantly, yes, we will ask this tester not to post
to usenet about the Beta ROMs.

Second, we all know that point (1) below has been fixed.

Third, pressing ESCape on the desktop now DOES cause the ST to forget
everything about the disk in the drive, and invalidate its caches,
even if the serial number matches.

Fourth, the ST has NEVER been able to handle a disk which is removed,
changed on another machine, and placed back in the drive.  The reason
is that the serial number is still the same, so the ST assumes the
rest of the disk is the same, too.

The fix for this is to put a DIFFERENT disk in the drive and access
it before putting the changed media back in.

The rationale for this is that you might pop a disk, to read the label
or change the write-protect tab, then place the same disk back in.  If
the ST invalidated everything as soon as you popped the disk, this would
be disasterous: you would get lost clusters and closed handles.

============================================
Opinions expressed above do not necessarily	-- Allan Pratt, Atari Corp.
reflect those of Atari Corp. or anyone else.	  ...ames!atari!apratt