wilmott@topaz.rutgers.edu (Ray Wilmott) (04/08/90)
------
Last week I posted a message grumbling about 2 minor annoyances on
the Mac...first that floppies seem to become unreadable too often;
second that the clock is inaccurate...
1) *Most* people that responded have not had floppy problems as I have
had. Some had suggested that a misaligned head is the culprit...I
doubt this since we have 5 macs at our site and ANY time we find a
bad disk we try then on ALL drives. The disk should work on the drive
it was written on, no?
Another thing I noticed about Mac floppies : On other machines,
when you have a bad disk, it's just plain bad. Plain and simple. On
the Mac I have discovered that if a disk is "unreadable" (upon
inserts into the drive; and on different machines), that *sometimes*
throwing the disk across the room causes it to work afterwards!
...which still akes me think the Mac's floppy read routines are
FAR too fussy.
2) As for the inaccurate time clock...some people indicated that they
have not experienced any problems with the clock; others asked "Who
cares? what are you doing that you need it to be so accurate?". No
I don't *need* it to be accurate. I use it for *nothing* actually.
It just annoys me that for five grand I can't get something that
tells time as good as a $10 watch. Plain and simple.
-Rayrob@uokmax.uucp (Bolo) (04/10/90)
In article <Apr.7.21.48.55.1990.17439@topaz.rutgers.edu> wilmott@topaz.rutgers.edu (Ray Wilmott) writes: >It just annoys me that for five grand I can't get something that >tells time as good as a $10 watch. Plain and simple. > -Ray I don't know. We don't have a single machine here that keeps time as good as a watch. The Macs drift about 30 seconds (or more) a month. The Suns are worse, we use rdate on them so that they all show the same (wrong) time. Our other machines are about the same. We just go around and set them periodically. Anybody know what the problem is? Robert -- Robert K. Shull rob@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu chinet!uokmax!rob
larryh@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Larry Hutchinson) (04/10/90)
Concerning the time of day clock in computers.. In article <1990Apr9.183810.13456@uokmax.uucp> rob@uokmax.uucp (Bolo) writes: >Our other machines are about the same. We just go around and set them >periodically. Anybody know what the problem is? There are several problems: 1. The temperature in a computer tends to fluctuate much more than the temp of a watch. 2. The electrical noise environment in a computer is rather severe. 3. The power supply voltage to the chip _may_ be different depending on whether the computer is on or off. Larry Hutchinson, Tektronix, Inc. PO Box 500, MS 50-383, Beaverton, OR 97077 CSNet: larryh@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM
russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto) (04/10/90)
In article <7277@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM> larryh@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Larry Hutchinson) writes: >Concerning the time of day clock in computers.. > >There are several problems: > 1. The temperature in a computer tends to fluctuate much more > than the temp of a watch. > 2. The electrical noise environment in a computer is rather > severe. Which brings up an interesting experiment--- has anyone taped a watch to the inside of the computer (say, under the drive housing in a II) and seen how far it went off? -- Matthew T. Russotto russotto@eng.umd.edu russotto@wam.umd.edu It will get on all your disks, It will infiltrate your chips, It will stick to you like glue, it will modify ROM too, Send in, Elk Cloner