[comp.sys.mac] Finder disk copying oddity

ccc_ldo@waikato.ac.nz (Lawrence D'Oliveiro, Waikato University) (03/26/90)

I want to mention a bug in the Finder that's been mildly bugging me
for a long time now.

I've got a vintage Mac II with a single 800K floppy drive. I frequently
do disk-to-disk copies using the Finder. When the copy has finished, I
give the copy the same name as the original. I do this by clicking on the
greyed-out icon of the (ejected) original, and doing a Copy. I then click
on the icon of the copy, and do a Paste.

This is where the problem occurs. About five times out of six (this
was my initial estimate; I think the problem is worse now) the above
procedure would work fine. But every so often, the Copy operation would
copy garbage, instead of the proper disk name. I would notice this as soon
as I did the Paste; frequently, the Finder would complain that I was
trying to give the disk a name longer than 27 characters.

By the way, I noticed this problem with Finder 6.1 (System 6.0, 6.0.2, 6.0.3)
and 6.1.4 (System 6.0.4) (I can't recall, but I think the special disk-
to-disk copy mode only came in with Finder 6.1). I started out with 2Mb
of memory, I now have 5Mb. I wasn't a regular MultiFinder user initially,
I am now (1.0, 6.0, 6.1b?, 6.1b9). I don't think the INITs I've been running
have anything to do with it.

I tried investigating the problem with MacsBug, by putting a breakpoint
on the PutScrap call. The memory block containing the name being put
to the Clipboard always seems to be a valid one (i e not a purged handle),
but--when the problem occurs--it certainly doesn't contain the volume name.

Anybody else noticed this? Is there a Finder 6.1.5 with System 6.0.5?
If so, does it fix the problem?

Lawrence D'Oliveiro
Computer Services Dept, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
"Sic Biscuitus Disintegratum." -- David Brin

werner@cs.utexas.edu (Werner Uhrig) (03/26/90)

> ccc_ldo@waikato.ac.nz (Lawrence D'Oliveiro, Waikato University) reports
> about incidences of the CUT and PASTE of floppy-names not working ...

	I have noticed that write-protected floppy names do not get
	copied into the Clipboard properly sometimes when I use ^C (I can
	easily tell as the EDIT-menu title does not blink in that case)
	but selecting CUT from the EDIT-menu with the mouse always works...

	it does sound somewhat similar to your problem and may be related
	or identical .... no idea if this happened only in 6.x but it
	sounds likely ...

				Cheers,		---Werner