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Article #334

Handling logical floppy (Insert diskette for B:) yourself?

#334
From: Eric A. Raymond
Date: Sun, 09 Aug 1992 20:32
23 lines
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I have a program which runs in graphics mode.  We need to deal with
logical floppies (i.e., A: and B: w/ only one real disk drive).

The problem is that the disk change message, "Insert diskette for
drive B: and press any key when ready", is printed directly to the
screen.

I would like to get control over this:
   - at least capture it to a window
   - possibly change the message to be more descriptive

How is this handled (DOS or BIOS) and how can I change the behavior?

One partial solution is to move the "text cursor" to a known position
and at least the message will come out there the first time.  But this
is a kludge.

Another alternative is to just use a single drive an manage the
swapping directly (but there is a minor problem that files on the
other disk should be kept open across the swap process).

Does anyone know how to handle this for real?
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Message-ID: <1992Aug9.203242.21032@kronos.arc.nasa.gov>
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!usc!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!ames!kronos.arc.nasa.gov!raymond

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Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer,alt.msdos.programmer
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!usc!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!ames!kronos.arc.nasa.gov!raymond
From: raymond@kronos.arc.nasa.gov (Eric A. Raymond)
Subject: Handling logical floppy (Insert diskette for B:) yourself?
Message-ID: <1992Aug9.203242.21032@kronos.arc.nasa.gov>
Sender: usenet@kronos.arc.nasa.gov (Will Edgington, wedgingt@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov)
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Organization: NASA Ames Research Center
Date: Sun, 9 Aug 1992 20:32:42 GMT
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