Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!tmsoft!robohack!eci386!jmm
From: jmm@eci386.uucp (John Macdonald)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: TappyType warning
Keywords: single-disk TappyType format
Message-ID: <1990Feb26.231407.28441@eci386.uucp>
Date: 26 Feb 90 23:14:07 GMT
Reply-To: jmm@eci386.UUCP (John Macdonald)
Organization: Elegant Communications Inc., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 32

Beware of using the TappyType cdev in a floppy-only system.

I had the following sequence occur:

    1 - inserted new disk, asked for two-sided initialize, agreed to erase
    2 - started typing the name to be used for the new disk
    3 - disk was ejected, system disk was requested, TappyType started
	making its typing noises
    4 - the system disk was reformatted without an opportunity to reinsert
	the new disk that was supposed to be the one that was formatted
    5 - my wife has become disillusioned with the Mac as an easy and safe
	to use computer (she was trying to format the disk so that she
	could make a second copy of her file, the first was on the system
	disk)

People at Apple: could you add a check in the formatting code to ensure
that nothing has caused an eject during the format dialog sequence just
before you actually do the format?  (Off hand, I can accept the explanation
that TappyType might not follow Apple guidelines; but this is something
that Apple ought to do for safety's sake anyhow.)

I have not put TappyType on my recreated system disk - while it is cute
to get the typewriter sound, it is just to dangerous.  I have no confidence
that this is the only place that will break when a system resource has to
be acquired just to "display text".

I apologize to the author of TappyType for not sending this message to
him - I don't have his/her name and address handy at present.
-- 
Algol 60 was an improvment on most           | John Macdonald
of its successors - C.A.R. Hoare             |   jmm@eci386