Date : Thu, 16 Nov 2006 09:32:38 +0100
From : s-whs@... (W.Scholten)
Subject: DFS on 3.5inch - Is this supposed to work?
Well, I must say I concur with Gareth Babb, maybe it's time to unsubscribe:
There's very little of interest/useful responses on the ML for me and
usually there's no interesting discussion. If there is a discussion it's
usually about something trivial or offtopic stuff where people who
usually don't post jump in; the only real result being an increased
noise level.
Since about the discussion about scanning and formats for storing (where
some guy complained that the ML was interesting enough for him anymore;
as if the ML was there to entertain him! And it's an example of 'those
who contribute the least, complain the most'), I've seen way too many
messages/people descending to nearly the same depths of stupidity as
I've seen in gnu.misc.discuss and that I've encountered in my
investigation into airlines/airports and other air-industry related
institutions.
Particularly annoying are various messages from people who *DO NOT READ
WHAT PEOPLE WRITE, JUST ASSUME SOMETHING* (Capitals are on purpose and
apparantly necessary). The reply to the post on stating the facts by
Peter Coghlan was ironic in this respect for me, as it's exactly that
problem of not reading what was said, that was displayed there.
And do you remember those guys who complained about RFC not being a
standard, and that they simply skipped over the explanation I gave for
the existence of netiquette (e.g. explanation for no top-posting), then
considered that something to be that "I wanted"? Those were a
combination of not reading what was said and not knowing the facts.
I can give more old examples, but I'll finish with this one:
[ Adam Colley ]
> Most PCs will read and write it just fine using the correct software
> (IE: Omniflop)
>
> I have four PCs here, three desktop machines and a laptop, all four
> are able to read and write DFS disks just fine with Omniflop
>
> I'm not sure where this myth about almost all PC FDC's having broken
> support for DFS etc. came from but it's just that, a myth.
>
Complete and utter bullshit. Read the mailing list archives. Read the
docs with FDC. I would not say "Most PCs haven broken SD support" but
the facts from people trying e.g. FDC and anadisk (so direct hardware
access, no BIOS or whatever intermediate layer) gathered over many years
on loads of different machines from various eras but esp. up to the
pentium 2 era (I've seen very few reports after that), are, that SD did
not work. I've posted about this a couple of years ago too when someone
said that recent machines seemed to support single density without
problem. This was not new, that was a *probable* trend (too little
evidence to be sure) already noted in the docs of the 1998 release of FDC.
I tried out a number of PCs with FDC/Anadisk from a 486, to a pentium
pro, k6-233, k6-350, pentium-166 and found that 80 track didn't work,
except with a switchable speed drive on the ppro/p-166. 40 track worked
on the ppro (-> rotation speed) and perhaps also the p166 but none of
the others. Robert Schmidt tried out far more IIRC and he and I got lots
of email over the years of reports from people for whom it didn't work,
and sometimes it did from people for whom it did work.
So, that 'most PCs don't support SD' might be false now but I've not
seen enough evidence to be sure (and your couple of machines are
statistically insignificant), it looks as if this wasn't so in the past.
This doesn't mean "it's a myth" is correct (look up the meaning of the
word myth). If you think most *current* PCs work with SD, provide
evidence that your assertion is true, FROM TESTS WITH MORE THAN A
HANDFUL OF MACHINES/CHIPSETS, and then you can say "is not true (any
more)". For the integrated chipsets of todays, probably only a
works/doesn't work per chipset list would be needed. On older systems
things could be broken due to e.g. some pins not being connected
(multiple chips connected), so a per computer type was needed (see also
the docs with FDC/FDCdemo). Not sure if unconnected pins can cause
trouble with recent chipsets.
> Well I've not found a PC that doesn't work, I'm sure a few exist but I
> suspect they're greatly outnumbered by the working ones, this all
> sounds like a PEBKAC problem to me...
I had to look PEBKAC up. Aha, the user gets the blame (and what a surprise,
YAUA(*)). So you Adam Colley, who doesn't know anything about the amount
of machines this was tested on in the past/recently, by whom and with what
failure rate, decide that the user trying it is/was the problem? Give me
a f*cking break. Oh yes, read the archives for a message from me about disk
reading where I mentioned 300/360 rpm switchable drives. PEBKAC indeed.
And finally, to Colin who complained a while back about some response,
stating:
> It really isn't nice to be told that you
> are thick by someone who probably has several university degrees when you
> have left school with nothing as some people do.
Maybe you interpreted it differently, but the responses weren't of the
type "you're thick" but "you're wrong" and some others about which
spelling mistakes were annoying. What's wrong with that? Should all
offtopic posts be allowed? Isn't it a good thing to remind people what
this mailing list is about when off-topic stuff is discussed? Apparantly
some don't like that as evidenced by the response by someone who
complained about it recently saying this might not be such a friendly
place. Hmm. And what was it someone else said? That he just skipped over
what didn't interest him? That will only work if there's little to skip.
I suppose according to those people it's wrong in real life too to point
to the fact someone's littering (which is not allowed) and that one can
easily look elsewhere. Who cares about all those cans and bits of paper
and whatever other junk on the grass when you can easily just look
elsewhere, right? If anyone criticized a guy because he told someone
else not to litter, I'd say that person is insane.
Finally on this, note that having a university degree doesn't mean
someone is not an idiot. For example, not reading what people say and
talking as if you know something happens with people of all levels and
types of education and especially manifests itself especially with
people who are full of themselves. e.g. I've examined the crap a lot of
air industry guys have spewed out, a few are 'special' professors
('buitengewoon hoogleraar') usually unpaid by the uni but by a business
or retired. These produce some of the most inane garbage I've ever seen
anywhere and I consider these people morons (e.g. the director of
Schiphol (a sociopathic liar called Cerfontaine), and a psychologist at
Leiden (a liar/moron called Stallen paid by a air industry propaganda
club)). In fact, such a title of 'special professor' is to me more a
proof of incompetence. I've stated all this with analysis on my webpages
btw., in dutch, but I plan translate the main parts in english for
others to 'enjoy'. And in case you're wondering, I'm not afraid of any
complaints about these webpages. Such complaints will not stand up in
court and unsurprisingly, there have not been any since the past 3 years
they've been online. Too bad actually, would have been fun :->
So, forget about education being an issue, it's not. It's in particular
about not reading what's being said, and not knowing the facts yet
acting as if you know all there is to know.
To conclude, lets face some more facts: This is not a family. There a
just a small number of people giving useful contributions on the ML, a
few others who maintain useful websites, then a lot of people who don't
contribute but, in p2p terms, 'leech'.
Wouter
(*) Yet another useless acronym
--
BBC micro | Calculators | Classic PC games: http://www.xs4all.nl/~swhs/whs/