[Oberon] Re: Occasional data transfer between boxes ?

[easlab at absamail.co.za]

Peter wrote:

cg> ... transfering data ...

> I have a similar interest.  
> 
> Last week I installed an Adaptec AHA-2940 and a 
> SCSI Zip drive on the machine at work.  At home I 
> installed an ATA Zip drive.
> 
Is this the Iomega technology ?
When they came out, I [& the market] thought they were 
brilliant because everything had a par-port.
I seldom use mine now, especially since I lost a disk or 2
of files.  I guess they are redundant given present 
solid-state devices, now ?

> The system with SCSI is trapping on the order of 10% 
> of attempted file stores.  Ie. more that 1% and less 
> than 100% of store attempts fail.  Every attempt to 
> shrink MailMessages has failed.  This device is not 
> useable.  This is the head of one of the traps.
> 
> TRAP 17  Disk error (PC Native 05.01.2003)
> OFSDiskVolumes.PutBlock  PC = 742
> 	adr = 13210
> 	blk = /, /, /, /, /, /, /, / ...
> 	dadr = 106767
> 	dev =  001A5A60H
> 	res = 22
> 	vol =  001BADA0H
> OFSAosFiles.PutSector  PC = 212
>    ...
>    
> The system with the ATA Zip has not been tested 
> enough to detect such failure.  Will post an update 
> in a week or two.
> 
Will anyone want to invest time developing software for
redundant hardware ?

It's amazing that these mechanical things worked as well
as they did.  The only problem with n-o's Backup package
is that it isn't crash recovery - like DOS & some linux are.

There's a difference between 'fair weather usage' and 
industrial quality.
Eg. when my ISP is congested, so there's a delay to
login and n-o's ppp times-out because it was developed
& tested under 'fair weather conditions' and it's in an
unanticipated state and one would normally need to 
reboot, except that I've got 10 text-frames which are 
still needed which will have to be saved before 
rebooting.   
I can't see why the telco-based-ISP can't 'feed-back' an
engaged signal to allow the client to make an intelligent
choice of not going on line, then.

Similarly, you shouldn't need to reboot for a fd0 error.
But fd0's life is at an end and noone's going to fix it now.

> Edgar commented recently,
> es> Bluebottle works with USB sticks.
> 
Are the successors of n-o ready for heavy duty work yet ?

> At Thu Jul 21 22:52:15 2005 Josef commented,
> js> On the other hand I could observe that sometimes 
> while copying many files - about 100 MB - the copying 
> stopped without any message.
> 
> Yikes!  
> 
> Sven confirmed,
> ss> There are still issues concering the USB system. 
> ss> I will continue to work on it.
> 
> So USB storage is fine for experimentation but 
> not yet reliable enough for routine use.
> 
> So Chris, the current situation is this.  An ftp 
> server can be used by both Native Oberon and DOS 
> clients.  I have used NetPresenz on MacOS and Linux 
> ftp servers for years.  Desktops.OpenDoc  
> ftp://<user@host> is convenient.
> 
OK, but what's the transport mechanism ?
I would only know how to ftp via the serial-port &
modem to my ISP and back from the ISP to the other 
box which is 2 meters away.  How can I ftp [easily]
directly between boxes ?   And why bother to ftp
when n-o has a serial-port I/O utility, as has DOS,
linux, WIN ?    Isn't it better to fix/tune the existing ?

> A removable fixed disk is still the only portable 
> medium which is really solid.  These things are 
> inexpensive thanks to USB.  Froogle and eBay for 
> "removable drive tray", "hot swap drive tray" & etc.
> 
> Oberon with a removable drive is better than Windows
> with USB?  Well, Newton and Einstein did their work 
> with neither.  =8~))

Yes, I have degenerated to inter-plugging the 6 IDEs
and CD-ROM between the 3 desktop-boxes.

A notebook, being closed, imposes some discipline
and I/O must be via ser-port [hence DOS-interlink]
or par-port [Iomega ZIP].

I guess USB-sticks is the near future way to go.
But I can't understand what is the problem/secrecy 
with USB; even IBM/OS2 didn't have the drivers
initially ? 

==   Chris Glur.