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Date: Sat, 13 Sep 1997 13:12:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jamie Bowden <jamie@itribe.net>
To: "M. L. Dodson" <bdodson@beowulf.utmb.edu>
cc: "K.J.Koster" <kjk1@ukc.ac.uk>, questions@freebsd.org, hackers@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Do *you* have problems with floppies?
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On Fri, 12 Sep 1997, M. L. Dodson wrote:

> K.J.Koster writes:
>  > > 
>  > > Personally, I suspect timing issues with the floppy driver; I assume
>  > > you are using an unFIFO'ed NEC floppy controller.  Floppy timing is
>  > > a critical factor in hysterisis effects and overall reliability.
>  > > 
>  > I do have in fact a NEC floppy controller :)
>  > 
>  > Umm. If timing is so critical, why do MS-DOS and Win311 work flawlessly
>  > with it? I mean, they are hardly real-time OS-es?
>  > 
> 
> Actually in this case, they are.  You can't do anything else
> while the floppy disk is being serviced by the driver.

You can get windows to screw this up quite easily actually.  Put a floppy
in ye ole floppy drive, open a dos window, use command line format, and
then go do something else.  It invariably screws up the format and
produces a disk that probably won't work.

Jamie Bowden
System Administrator, iTRiBE.net

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