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For what are the Windows A:\ and B:\ drives used?

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Re: For what are the Windows A:\ and B:\ drives used?

#261

Post by regularfry »

redthrowaway wrote: post #258
waqf wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly, that number is a function of how far apart your particular origin and destination are, so it's not intrinsic to the station wagon. And secondly, you just measured latency there, not bandwidth.

Unless I'm wrong, they've measured both: Latency is 1 hour (time it takes a packet to go from source to destination), bandwidth is that number they quoted.

Latency is greater than 1 hour, if it takes an hour to copy the data to the tapes. You've got to get them to the destination and copy them off after that.

Re: For what are the Windows A:\ and B:\ drives used?

#263

Post by CrLf »

patrickyeon wrote: post #171
motters wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The movement from camera film to digital cameras was a largely unnoticed revolution which took place within the last decade.

In industry, that may be so (I seem to recall one of the Star Wars prequels being the first feature movie done entirely with digital cameras). For end-user video cameras (handicams, or whatnot), we've been storing to magnetic tape for a good bit longer though.

Being digital doesn't mean using solid state storage. Magnetic tape is probably still the most used medium for digital video cameras. For example, Betacam SX is still used.

Re: For what are the Windows A:\ and B:\ drives used?

#264

Post by BahUnfair »

extension wrote: post #236
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #60

> "Please Insert Disk 13" OH GOD WHERE IS DISK 13, I CAN'T FIND DISK 13. - Jeff 16 hours ago I have exactly this memory as well. My first computer was a Compaq Deskpro Portable. It had a 5.25" floppy drive and a 40 MB hard disk. It was an embarrassment of riches - how could you ever fill up 40 whole mega bytes? Between that and my custom AUTOEXEC.BAT file, I was set. As it happens, I still have most of the files I cr…

Goes to show how much we've come to embrace change in the last couple of decades. Software was coming on ~50 floppies before we ditched them for CDs. Nowadays, things never get that bad before a replacement is phased in.

Unreal Tournament 2004 got up to 5 CDs and Half Life 2 I'm sure had seven. Apart from that, I've never seen anything even approaching what you guys are saying about old windows OS installs.

Re: For what are the Windows A:\ and B:\ drives used?

#265

Post by TimJYoung »

Unosolo wrote: post #95

Few people on superuser.com seem to mention that B:\ was always reserved even on a single floppy system so that it was possible to copy data from one floppy onto another: 1. Insert source disk 2. Type copy a:\ . b:\ 3. The system will read a chunk of data from a:\ then say: Please insert disk B: and press any key to continue... 4. You'd swap the disks, press a key, and the system will write the chunk of data and say…

Re; Win95 - Yes, and I still have them somewhere in my attic. I even have the original Windows 95 beta floppies. :-)

Another one that was a doozie was VC++ for Windows 3.1 - it was about 13 or 14 3.5" floppies also.

Re: For what are the Windows A:\ and B:\ drives used?

#267

Post by sesqu »

brudgers wrote: post #129
roel_v wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you read it as 'a massive pile of legacy Windows applications', which is reasonable, it's not a stretch to assume that many applications written in the last 20 years assume that the OS is on a harddisk, and on C: for that matter.

Prior to Windows 95 the preponderance of Windows programs were 16bit. Seeing as 16bit programs are not compatible with recent versions of Windows one can be reasonably assured that they are not in that vast pool of legacy applications. Hand in hand with 32bit Windows came the registry, which is where most applications stored configuration information until relatively recent times. To the best of my recollection, I ha…

I haven't used windows since 98SE, but I learned my lesson and have recommended all family members put programs in the default locations.

I used to have Windows on C:, Program Files on D: and My Documents on E:. Everything broke, to an approximation.

Re: For what are the Windows A:\ and B:\ drives used?

#268

Post by waqf »

redthrowaway wrote: post #258
waqf wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly, that number is a function of how far apart your particular origin and destination are, so it's not intrinsic to the station wagon. And secondly, you just measured latency there, not bandwidth.

Unless I'm wrong, they've measured both: Latency is 1 hour (time it takes a packet to go from source to destination), bandwidth is that number they quoted.

Latency is 1 hour, but to get bandwidth you need to divide not by 1 hour but by the time between successive station wagon departures. For example if you only have one station wagon and driving back after copying the tapes takes a further 30 minutes, then the denominator is 5400 seconds and so the system bandwidth is 50% less than the number quoted.

Re: For what are the Windows A:\ and B:\ drives used?

#269

Post by runjake »

cadr wrote: post #221
runjake wrote: post #168

The Timex-Sinclair 1000 was like my 3rd or 4th computer. End of contest (hopefully all the real PDP folks are long dead, right?). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_1000 2K RAM, 3 MHZ CPU (much faster than the .9 MHZ of my TRS-80 Color Computer. Yes, it didn't even have 1 MHZ). And yes, I did a lot of programming on that keyboard.

A VAX 11/750 was my 4th or so computer. Of course, that was after an Apple II clone, and C64, and a 286. They were scrapping it and I (my high school, but really me) ended up with it. Can't remember if I ever got it working properly, but it was really impressive. It had been used in an NMR setup and had really neat vacuum tubes to do connect to that.

Scrapped doesn't count, if so I have some 1960s gear. I also have a bit of nostalgic fondness for VAX & VMS as I spent my early computing career working on it (along with the full range of DEC gear). I'd never want to go back, though.

Re: For what are the Windows A:\ and B:\ drives used?

#270

Post by samic »

hc5 wrote: post #169
Vivtek wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You had cards? We had to use a hammer and awl to punch the holes into vellum that we tanned ourselves.

I'll just leave this here :) http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1992-09-08/

LOOLL! such a laugh!! Tnx
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