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SubjectRe: Scheduled Transfer Protocol on Linux
On Sat, 12 Feb 2000, Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH wrote:

> In message <200002122355.PAA22210@clock.engr.sgi.com>, Zachary Amsden writes:
> +-----
> | > To you, perhaps. I'll tell you this: I run a software business on Linux.
> | > I can get 20GB drives for $200. If I could get 20GB drives with Linux
> | > running on them for $300, I'd be buying them like cupcakes.
> |
> | Why? So you can log in to your disk drives and run emacs?

Those who ever delved into the magics of a Commodore 64 (in fact, most
Commodore products prior to the Amiga) knows that the disk-drive 1541 (and
it's relatives...) has a 6502 of its own that is fully programmable. You
can send programs to the drive and have it execute them. Very neat. For
instance, if you have 2 disk-drives, you simply send a disk-copier to one
of the drives and detach them from the computer. Then you have a
disk-copier that'll make copies from the master disk onto the one you put
into the other drive (of course, the drive knows when a new disk has been
inserted...)

There are weirder examples of what the drive was used for, but as it only
had 8 KB of memory, you could not do as much as you wanted. However, the
1581 is an altogether different beast, with 32 kb of memory (or was it
even 64? Can't recall off-handedly.) For instance (however unimplemented
to my knowledge), one could put one of the drives into loading, crunching
(or, as most other people would call it, compress) and saving every file
on disk, leaving the computer for better tasks.


/David Weinehall
_ _
// David Weinehall <tao@acc.umu.se> /> Northern lights wander \\
// Project MCA Linux hacker // Dance across the winter sky //
\> http://www.acc.umu.se/~tao/ </ Full colour fire </


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