[comp.sys.mac.system] What is Apple 800K Eject init?

john@newave.UUCP (John A. Weeks III) (06/27/90)

In article <58359.2685A83D@cmhgate.FIDONET.ORG> Adam.Frix@p2.f200.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Adam Frix) writes:
> > In article <1714@ac.dal.ca> ireland@ac.dal.ca writes:
> > > A local bulletin board here has an init called Apple 800K Eject.

> > Supposedly there's a problem with some Apple 800k drives that if the
> > heads are out on the outside of the disk when it's ejected, it gets
> > caught on the shutter and mangles the drive, the disk or both.

> It looks for all the world like a subtle admission from Apple that they
> goofed slightly with their 800K drives.

One person's goof is another person's highway robbery.  I lost three
drives to broken upper head brackets for this reason.  Each one costed
me $175 or so to fix.  Apple should come clean on this problem and
refund everyone that they robbed.

Actually, 5 years is a bit soon to expect action from Apple--last I
heard they were still trying to settle a class-action lawsuit centering
around the famous "twiggy" drive.

What's next from Apple?  How about a flyback transformer init?

-john-

-- 
===============================================================================
John A. Weeks III               (612) 942-6969               john@newave.mn.org
NeWave Communications                ...uunet!rosevax!bungia!wd0gol!newave!john
===============================================================================

KPURCELL@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK (06/29/90)

The problem with parking of the heads on 800k floppy disks drives when ejecting
the disk has been cured in 6.0.4 and later.

You no longer need the INIT or need to worry. My twin floppy SE lasted 18 month
on 6.0.2 with the INIT and I haven't lost a head (yet!). Its now at 6.0.4.


Kevin Purcell ................................... kpurcell @ liverpool.ac.uk
\ Surface Science      \ Stepwise Refinement n.  A sequence of kludges K,
 \ Liverpool University \ neither distinct or finite, applied to a program P
  \ Liverpool L69 3BX    \ aimed at transforming it into the target program Q.

binder@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Tim Binder) (07/03/90)

You know, it just occurs to me that a serious problem I just recently had
might be related to the 800K Init that's floating around:

I HAD a two drive Mac+ with HD20SC. One day I ejected a disk, when low &
behold, there was this white plastic thingie caught in the disk shutter. I
thought, "Great! This is sure to have messed up my disk head!" When I looked
at the drive, I found it WAS the disk head.

My question is: Could this be in anyway related to System Software (I was
running 6.0.2 and later 6.0.4)? It was a Mac Plus, not SE, not II
(unfortunately). At the time, I figured I was SOL. I still figure that, but
I also figure that it couldn't hurt to ask. Figures, eh?

Tim
binder@eniac.seas.upenn.edu



|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Timothy Mark Binder      | At any time, at any place, our snipers can drop |
| Computing Coordinator    | you  at a  moment's  notice.  Have a  nice day. |
| Van Pelt College House   |-------------------------------------------------|
| University of Pennsylvania      | Disclaimer: Nobody tells this university |
| (Yes, I'm only a student here.) | what to think, least of all us students. |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

wiseman@tellabs.com (Jeff Wiseman) (07/05/90)

In article <90180.171250KPURCELL@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK> KPURCELL@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK writes:
>The problem with parking of the heads on 800k floppy disks drives when ejecting
>the disk has been cured in 6.0.4 and later.
>
>You no longer need the INIT or need to worry. My twin floppy SE lasted 18 month
>on 6.0.2 with the INIT and I haven't lost a head (yet!). Its now at 6.0.4.
>
Right! By the time you're using 6.0.4 you have to either be using high density
floppies or a hard drive due to the size of the 6.0.4. system oriented files!
Also, the use of any 800k floopies in the system will also be greatly reduced
(after all, who REALLY wants to use floppies if they have a hard drive :-).

Just curious here, is Apple distibuting 6.0.4 (or 6.0.5) with the Mac Pluses
that they are selling? If so, it seems to me that it would render the machine
almost unusable.

Of course, the good ol' standby that was available on all the original machines
for WYSIWYG (ie. MacWrite) would have a problem on a mac Plus in its current
release :-). Oh well, such is progress!

--
Jeff Wiseman:	....uunet!tellab5!wiseman OR wiseman@TELLABS.COM