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Re: [colorforth] blocks and corrupted floppies


On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 14:47:55 -0500, rlevy <rlevy@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I know that thinking critically about ColorForth and what improvements can be
> made is probably on noone's mind, with the recent lawsuit Chuck is involved
> in. i also noticed that not many ideas are being bounced back and forth
> publically. but I was just concerned about the system because in my primary
> getting-aquainted-with doings, and i've really just only started 2 days ago
> (but i am absolutely hooked now), i've found myself continually "patching"
> corrupted colorforth floppies, due to a byte getting written here or there
> into the wrong spot. i know it may be my fault, for want of experience and
> understanding all the ins and outs, but i was wondering if people continue to
> have this problem even after lots of time and if it is why Chuck has
> suggested the use of a "round-robin" system of floppies, a kind of analog
> GoBack. it sounds like a sure bet to protect oneself against losing all their
> work but i imagine that it could lead to confusion, say if you make the
> mistake of writing to them out-of-order or simply forget to save a working
> copy before continuing.

I have a floppy labeled "Vanilla" which is the vanilla colorforth,
without any changes. When a floppy doesn't work, or just when I feel
like it, I boot from "Vanilla" and do "0 0 3 writes" to the broken
floppy.

> I thought that maybe the problem could be softened by changing (or
> extending?) the system to only save changed blocks to disk. then if the core
> software is disturbed while working, it won't be a problem next time you boot
> up, saving the trouble of finding the newest working save or patching the
> floppy from Windows. i think that first i need a word to save a random block
> to disk (even past the original 162-block boundary) and then one in the root
> block to save whatever i'm currently working on and only that. should save
> some headaches. and time waiting for the disk. but it's not perfect. maybe
> patching corrupted disks isn't the bother that could be made possible by
> forgetting to update my custom save word. wow, these are real issues. one of
> the things i love most about working in this new platform is i l so
> RESPONSIBLE for myself. what a remarkable change from working in a sea of
> rules and complexity that i was in before ...

Same reasons I like it :)
 
> so, jumping back, i wanted to know if other people have had the same troubles
> and how they deal with it.

You can probably change "save" to not save the first track. I think
its just one number, although I'm not sure. You can then always add
"savek" to save just the kernel.

-- Chris

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-- 
I F34R N0N3 F0R F0RTH SH4LL GUID3 M3

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