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From: a6ey@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (Adam C. Engst)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Autosaver (new additions)
Message-ID: <3515.25e90f03@vax5.cit.cornell.edu>
Date: 26 Feb 90 15:12:03 GMT
References: <9362@portia.Stanford.EDU> <1206@ux.acs.umn.edu> <9426@portia.Stanford.EDU>
Distribution: comp
Lines: 37

In article <9426@portia.Stanford.EDU>, thewho@portia.Stanford.EDU (Derek Fong) writes:
> In article <1206@ux.acs.umn.edu> clarson@ux.acs.umn.edu (Chaz Larson) writes:
>>In article <9362@portia.Stanford.EDU> thewho@portia.Stanford.EDU (Derek Fong) writes:
>>>Is there a  DA/Cdev or something out there which will autosave files for the
>>>user.  
>>
> For example,
> 
> if I am working on a file called "paper" it would periodically save to a file
> called "autosave of paper" (as with the Carnegie Mellon (CMU) programs) or
> as "paper.bak" or "paper*" as in Unix (I believe Unix does it in one of those
> formats although I hardly pay attention to it).
> 
> Having this type of autosave might leave you hard drive with extra files, 
> until you trash them after you have completed you work.  But it provides
> an actual SECOND copy and in case you have made changes which you don't like,
> they won't be save on your original file's name.
> ---Derek Fong
> fong@cive.stanford.edu
> thewho@portia.stanford.edu


    Both WordPerfect (the much-maligned) and Nisus offer this sort of
    backup, which in my opinion, is the only sort that is of any use. 
    At one point I was working on a paper on floppy with WriteNow,
    using two copies and using the Autosave DA on every 4 minutes. 
    Unfortunately, WriteNow erases the old file before it saves the
    new one, so when one disk ran out of room when I was doing a
    manual save as (this was a large paper), WriteNow erased the
    second file, realized there wasn't enough room to write the new
    one, crashed, and damaged the file that was open on the first
    disk.  After some work with FEdit, I went back towork with a four
    floppy system with two always out of the machine for extra safety. 
    That's the main reason I llike to use WordPerfect, and hopefully
    Nisus soon.  It's just too dangerous to work with Word or WriteNow
    if they crash without that second backup automatically taken care
    of.