[comp.sys.amiga] Bug-fix requests for 1.21/1.3

kim@amdahl.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn) (11/28/87)

In article <3228@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com>, eric@hector.UUCP (Eric Lavitsky) writes:
>
> VD0:, the ASDG Recoverable Ram Disk, will usually not work with
> the Insider memory expansion or other memory products that place
> themselves in the $c00000 address space. This is due to a destructive
> method of determining that memory at $c00000 exists.

This is also said to be a problem on B2000's if you run "SlowMemLast" in
order to put the half-fast ram at the tail end of the memory allocation
list.  I haven't verified this, as I'm still waiting to get an 8MI board,
but I'm wondering if ASDG is working on a fix for this?

Or better yet, since CBM is busily working on 1.21/1.3/1.4, how about
fixing the memory-sizing algorithm so it does it's job *non-destructively*?
Should be pretty easy ... just do a read from the test locations before
clobbering them with your test-pattern, and then finish-up by rewriting
the original data back (can you say "poof")?


While I'm at it, how about fixing the "disk-exactly-full-validator-bug"
this time out?  That's the one where you *exactly* fill a floppy 100%
full.  Everything *looks* OK at that point, but if you then remove the
floppy, when you reinsert it, the system will ask for the WB (if it isn't
present), and then proceed to run the "Disk-Validator".

Not a real biggie, but I strongly suspect that some recent problems I had
with a friend's floppy were related to this.  When I'd "cd" to the floppy
on either the 1000 or the 2000, I'd get a "Disk Corrupt" alert, yet there
was no problem on his machine.  This happened with several "diskcopy" copies
of his master, some made df0: --> df1:, others made df1: --> df0:  "Info"
would show me a 100% full floppy, but as soon as I tried to do a "dir" on
it, or "cd" to it ..... wham!

It's my *opinion* that this was originally a "partially validated" floppy
that looked OK to "diskcopy" and "info", but not to anything else.  Finally
got the problem solved by creating a new master on his system, and making
sure the disk-validator had run by ejecting and reinserting it on his machine
(poof).


It'd also be nice if system-requesters would *tell* you what it was they
are looking for when asking you to insert a particular floppy, but I suppose
the filename(s) aren't readily available by the time it gets to that point ...


/kim



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