Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 11:47:31 +1200 (NZST) From: Jonathan Purvis To: "Alaric B. Williams" cc: grendel AT hoth DOT amu DOT edu DOT pl, alaric AT abwillms DOT demon DOT co DOT uk, opendos-developer AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: File Systems (was Re: Usage of directory entries In-Reply-To: <862258398.1011862.0@abwillms.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Precedence: bulk On Mon, 28 Apr 1997, Alaric B. Williams wrote: > The mounting is done invisibly. Typing a: is just a change directory; > we don't have to type "a:" when a new disk is inserted, we just type > DIR again, or whatever we want from the disk. There is no operation that > has to be taken to inform the system of disk changes because it knows, > all on it's own! Well, on an XT, there is no disk change sensor, so DOS has to re-mount the disk everytime it accesses it. On an AT, there is a disk change line, so it can keep a copy of the FAT and directories in memory. This is how things like Norton Backup can automagically know when a disk is put in. Later... Jon ======================================================================== ________ | 2 | Faster than an AT bus, | 8 | Stronger than a full-height hard disk, \ 6 / Able to leap tall tower cases in a single bound, \__/ It's the 286 Crusader! "I fight for Truth, Justice and more 16-bit software." ========================================================================