🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <BuF2p7.CBC@DMI.USherb.CA> famus2@DMI.USherb.CA (Projet2 Famus) writes:
>Hi, I was wondering if anyone has C code for fast file writing to floppies.
>The application that I'm writing compresses the data before writing to disk,
>but the bottleneck is the floppy.  I'm currently trying to optimize disk
>writing by using a technique similar to XCOPY, but if I had code that
>resembled XCOPY already written that might help me meet my deadline.
...

Enabling SMARTDRV's write-behind cache for the floppy drive can
give dramatic improvement.  BUT, you have to be brave and bold to
try it, and careful enough not to snatch the floppy from the drive
as soon as you application thinks it's done, because SMARTDRV may
still be writing for a while.

I often do this ("smartdrv a+") when copying a large number of files
to a floppy.  It saves all the seeking back and forth between the
directory and the user data area.  With 2MB of cache (when not in
Windows), the copy operation runs at the speed of the hard drive and
completes; the floppy is still tick, tick, ticking along writing tracks
as fast as possible.  I wait for a "smartdrv /c" to return before
removing the floppy, and all is well.  (I also do a "smartdrv a" to get
back into a safer mode.)

It should be possible to get this behavior from within an application,
but I know of no other way than loading and executing SMARTDRV with
the apropriate parameters, and a large app. probably wouldn't have
enough memory available to do this.

Bob Nichols
rnichols@ihlpm.ih.att.com