TYSON@WARBUCKS.AI.SRI.COM (Mabry Tyson) (02/09/89)
Re the discussion of mice problems. I had problems with mine and, rather than getting it overhauled or whatever, I replaced it with a mouse that was surplus from work. Some years back we got some Xerox dandelions that originally came with 2-button mice. At that time we replaced the mice with 3-button optical mice. I recently took an old 2-button Xerox mouse home and built a adapter cable (appropriate pins-to-pins, no electronics) and it works just fine on my 1040. This also means that the 3 button optical mice that we had for the Xerox machines would work as well. (We also use these mice on our Symbolics machines but we have a small converter box as the signals are inverted. So Symbolics mice would require some electronics to run on the Atari.) On another topic, I recently needed to buy some floppies late on the weekend and so ran off to a discount store. They were out of the kinds I had used before so I bought some that were called BONUS (made by Verbatim). However, I have had repeated problems with the Atari claiming that the write-protect is set for them when it wasn't. It doesn't always happen but it happened a number of times on different disks. I didn't notice it happening on my other brands of disks (which I was also writing onto at about the same time). Admittedly I was doing the majority of writing at about those times with the BONUS disks. As I understand it, the write-protect is set if the window on the disk is open. I don't understand any mechanism by which one brand of disk could mislead the Atari into thinking that the disk was write protected when I can see that it wasn't. So, it must be something flaky with my Atari rather than the disks. But I have used written onto another set of disks (different brand) since then and didn't have the problem again but then I did have the problem when I was writing to one of the BONUS disks. I know it seems crazy but is there some way the disks are at fault or am I just being laughed at by the gods of coincidence. [P.S. If anyone out there cares, I do have a version of SUPDUP that I run to talk to my Symbolics from home. I dial up to a Vax and then telnet from there to the Symbolics on the SUPDUP port and have my Atari speak SUPDUP to it. Graphics are not implemented. I haven't tried it with any SUPDUP host (eg, SAIL) other than a Symbolics.]
clf3678@ultb.UUCP (C.L. Freemesser) (02/11/89)
The only possible thing I can think of is that the write protect window
in the Bonus disks is mis-alligned, and the drive isn't detecting the
window. Also, the drive's write-protect mechanism may be marginal, and
the Bonus disks are just a TEENSY WEENSY bit out of whack. I would say
that you should have the write-protect mechanism checked.
BTW, I believe that BONUS disks are Verbatim disks that don't meet the
desired specs, but are good enough to be sold. I'd stay away from them
in any case.
=ChrisFreemesser=
P.S. Eastman Kodak is based here in Rochester, so I can find out FOR
SURE if Bonus disks are indeed rejects.