Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 22:33:27 +0100 (BST) From: "K.J.Koster" <kjk1@ukc.ac.uk> To: hackers@freebsd.org Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Do *you* have problems with floppies? Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.95.970912220547.4487A-100000@kestrel.ukc.ac.uk> In-Reply-To: <199709122056.NAA24445@usr08.primenet.com>
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>
> The correct way for a multitasking OS to deal with this is *NOT* to
> drop into a buzz loop and to cease being a multitasking OS for the
> duration of the loop, as you are suggesting.
>
I agree with you that busy-looping on a device is not the correct way to
go about I/O, and I understand why FreeBSD does not busy-loop. However, we
are not talking about SCSI or IDE drivers, we are talking about a lowly
floppy driver. This discussion is about people finding their floppies
trashed by their OS. Hardly `the correct way'.
If I look at how I use my floppy drive, I'm usually sitting and waiting
for it to finish anyway, so if my CPU is clocking idle time or system time
makes no difference for me, personally.
I have cheap hardware, and for that I am happy to pay the performance
penalty, as I do every day. I'm quite happy to pay the performance penalty
for a busy-looping floppy driver, if that means I can write floppies
without having to worry whether I can read the disk later or not.
FreeBSD has special options for people with broken keyboard resets,
broken APM and broken PCMCIA cards. Why not add another one for unfifo'd
floppy controllers?
Groetjes,
Kees Jan
PS. I just realized I have written my demo code for my job applications
using mtools... Oops :) You guys are giving me a headache.
---------------------------------------------------------------v--
Kees Jan Koster tel: UK-1227-453157 e-mail: kjk1@ukc.ac.uk
15 St. Michaels Road, Canterbury, Kent, United Kingdom
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