From: ssurawls@susssys1.reading.ac.uk (Mister E)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: >>A5000 disc format recognising
Date: 13 Apr 92 15:05:37 GMT

Philip R. Banks typed;

>> Does the A5000 recognise its disc types automatically and can you override
>> them? What I mean is if you put a 2 meg disc in and select format does it
>> default to 1.6 meg or 800K, and could you force it to format a 2 meg disc
to
>> 800K?
>
>   The A5000 makes no assumption about what format you want. It simply lets
>you pick what format you like and the drive is capable of. Thus yes you can
>format HD discs to 800K if you *really* want. Conversely the drive doesn't
>take note of the High Density 'hole' in discs and 1 Meg unformated floppies
>may be formmated to 1.6 Meg if you like.

Ooops! I just posted that info myself.. Really should read the rest of the
thread beforeposting..

>> Someone on the net recently commented that acorn, himself and one other are
>> the only acorn fans here. Well in about a week I don't think I will ever be
>> able to say anything REMOTELY critical of acorn as I am going to be forced
to
>> use macs for a while. If ever you get annoyed with your archie, go and try
to
>> do the same job on a PC, mac or Amiga, and then things will be fine when
you
>> get back home!

>   This is indeed the situation I am in. I am growing to loath X windows and
>the Mac GUI after having become so used to the Risc OS desktop. It is a very
>nasty shock to the system to go back to such GUI's....let alone the software
>on the machines. Ugh!

How do you think I feel now I have my A5000? ACORN I LOVE YOU! Gad, this
bloody sun is pausing for a second every 5 seconds! It's a network fault I
know so don't go an about if it was a single user system it would be fine, but
it ISN'T, so whether it would work fine or not is not relevant!

I was helping someone with a Mac a few days ago, a IICX I think, one of the
faster ones. It has 8 megs of memory, yet it still can't load multifinder and
the scanning package at the same time. It also wouldn't allow me to run
multifinder and wordperfect at the same time, due to lack of memory! There's
me  and my new toy (A5000) with a measily little 4 meg running in 256 colour
mode with a large backdrop, god knows what loaded, raytracing a picture while
typing up a report in impressions while drawing diagrams in draw!

A PC owning friend gave me some discs to for me to put some JPEGs on for him.
He gave me ten discs. On each of those discs was parts of Word for Windows,
takes up about 15 discs! Try running it on anything less than a 4 meg machine
and you are in trouble. My friend has an 8 meg PC with 32 meg virtual memory,
and still the programs are always swapping out of memory.

I'm not even going to mention my Amiga owning friends.

Yes I am. An Amiga owning friend of mine has an art package that is supposed
to be the Beez Neez in art packages. He tried to load some of the jpegs that I
copied for my PC mate, but even the small ones wouldn't load due to lack of
memory. This is on a 5 meg amiga! These are small jpegs, about 400 by 500 at
the most and it wouldn't load them! We eventually managed to get one loaded,
but it made a terrible job of it and took forever, on a tiny file.

So, we should all be happy. I am. At least until I begin to take the features
of my new machine for granted, like I did my old one. Then I'll have to borrow
an Amiga for a while..

Ian


Posted Mon Apr 13 16:05:13 BST 1992

=+=+=+=+=+ 8< =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 8< =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 8< =+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Mr Ian Rawlings, Telephone Reading (0734) 662301
	EMAIL ssurawls@susssys1.rdg.ac.uk

A Dublin lawyer died in poverty and many barristers of the city sub-
scribed to a fund for his funeral. The Lord Chief Justice of Orbury
was asked to donate a shilling. "Only a shilling?" said the man. "Only
a shilling to bury an attorney? Here's a guinea; go and bury 20 of them."