From owner-freebsd-current Tue Apr 9 01:21:06 1996 Return-Path: owner-current Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id BAA21136 for current-outgoing; Tue, 9 Apr 1996 01:21:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from irz301.inf.tu-dresden.de (irz301.inf.tu-dresden.de [141.76.1.11]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id BAA21120 for ; Tue, 9 Apr 1996 01:20:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sax.sax.de by irz301.inf.tu-dresden.de (8.6.12/8.6.12-s1) with ESMTP id KAA14346 for ; Tue, 9 Apr 1996 10:20:44 +0200 Received: by sax.sax.de (8.6.11/8.6.12-s1) with UUCP id KAA02253 for freebsd-current@FreeBSD.org; Tue, 9 Apr 1996 10:20:44 +0200 Received: (from j@localhost) by uriah.heep.sax.de (8.7.5/8.6.9) id KAA08669 for freebsd-current@FreeBSD.org; Tue, 9 Apr 1996 10:01:02 +0200 (MET DST) From: J Wunsch Message-Id: <199604090801.KAA08669@uriah.heep.sax.de> Subject: Re: floppy format detection [was Re: devfs questions] To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.org (FreeBSD-current users) Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 10:01:01 +0200 (MET DST) Reply-To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch) In-Reply-To: from "Frank Durda IV" at Apr 8, 96 08:34:00 pm X-Phone: +49-351-2012 669 X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24 ME8a] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-current@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk As Frank Durda IV wrote: > IMO, the tradeoff between full automatic format detection, semi-automatic > detection (as in the 16/6000) and manual specification, is a question of > driver complexity plus how much delay you are willing to experience on each > open of the drive, plus whether you can determine certain things without > damage to the hardware. I personally prefer having an semi-automatic > dev plus manual devs or an ioctl available for explicit settings. I fully agree with you here. That's why i would like to have a part of the minor number available for several densities, where only density 0 is autodetect. > In the PC/AT world, the CMOS provides the "hints" needed to perform > semi-automatic operations and get the test time down to an > acceptable level. But only for the first two drives. :-) -- cheers, J"org joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)