Re: [Freedos-user] Large drives with 4k sectors presenting as 512b?

[Jack <gyk...@ea...>]

> There are so many inaccuracies and distortions in the reply that you
> sent, I'm going to assume you are just irritated or in a bad mood.

In fact, I was neither, until reading what you post below.   Once again
you choose only to "pick nits" at the technical examples I mention, but
flatly REFUSE to address my ACTUAL point of NO BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY.

> The world moves on ... it doesn't make sense to support existing
> standards forever.   You can have eternal support, or affordable
> prices, but not both.

What I resent, and have all my time in computers, is that such "existing
standards" are usually supplanted with absolutely NO thought of backward
compatibility.   We are all FORCED to buy new systems ever 2 or 3 years,
whether we like it and have the cash, or NOT, simply because chip makers
want to sell us something "new".   They ARE "sales driven" as I hope you
know, and there are NO sales if people still can find the OLD equipment!

> - Modems have been supplanted by networks thousands of times faster
> - Screens have more real-estate than ever and can be carried in one hand
> - Most machines are SMPs on a chip
> - Hard drives are measured in sizes that used to fill a data center

I still use a 56K modem, still have a 17" CRT monitor, and have a single-
core AMD 3000+ that serves me fine.   Saves me the every-2-or-3-year cost
of buying what OTHERS in the PC industry "think I SHOULD" buy now!   And
I hope my equipment will KEEP ON saving me such cost!

> Most of us like this progress.  While I do enjoy tinkering with my old
> hardware, it's not usable for things that most people need to do today.

Mine still is, and I bet most people's hardware still is.   Perhaps that
is why PC sales took such a HUGE nosedive around 2008.   The world economy
and a lot of bad banks certainly contributed, but I would not be surprised
if many people decided "We really do NOT need new hardware now!", and they
are still using 5+ year old systems, same as me.

> ISA buses were an abomination.   Sorry - that's the bottom line.

Always worked for me, and again, my regret is that someone ELSE flatly TOOK
AWAY even the CHANCE for me to continue using one!

> PCI bridges server a valuable purpose - to decouple segments of the
> extended bus from each other, both for clock speed and management  
> purposes.

If a PCI bridge can do it, why can't an individual DEVICE do it, e.g. look
at bus-timings only when they need to read/write DATA on the bus, which is
equivalent to "decoupling THEMSELVES", without needing a whole bridge chip
to be involved??   Last I heard, any "bus" has a "clock", and if a device
wants to key off of its OWN "clock" for certain functions, let it DO so!!

> I hate to shock you even further, but the PCI bus itself has become so
> standard and ubiquitous that the virtual machines out there like KVM use
> it as an abstraction layer for defining the hardware of the virtual  
> machine!

Their business, not mine, since I have never used a "virtual machine".   I
would rather have a REAL machine, not another software layer.

> The move to serial (point to point) links is driven by the physical
> reality of electrical engineering - it's hard to run signals over
> parallel wires at high speeds and keep them in sync.  You can argue that
> it's not needed; the people needing to push larger and larger amounts of
> data through their systems disagree.

Fine, let the serial busses exist if they must.   But again, NO ONE gave
users any CHOICE about keeping our PARALLEL busses, and again we all had
to buy new hardware, because the industry DENIED us any more old hardware!

> And as is pointed out already, ECC over a 4K sector size is more
> efficient space wise than ECC over 512 byte sectors.  In an incredibly
> cost conscious industry you can't leave that kind of space savings on
> the table.   Do you like cheap storage or 512 byte sectors?

I like both.   But, you convince me that I need not just a spare floppy-
disk, but also a spare hard-disk, too!     All your comments convince me
the PC industry will GO ON flatly DENYING me or others ANY SORT of back-
ward compatibility.    So if I am, in fact, totally happy with available
disks and don't need 4K-sector types, I had better "stock up" now!    Or
just PITCH my PC and accept using an IPad.   Appears a lot of people may
be doing just that!

> I think we can live with the 4KB sectors - it's going to cause a per-
> formance hit, but on modern hardware we have enough to burn.

Thank you for yet another reason why I do NOT want 4K sectors, if that
is so!   Is that how you answer Felix Miata's comment, in this thread,
that 4K sectors will cause more last-block file wastage, i.e. "We have
enough [performance] to BURN"??   We NEVER have any such thing, in my
opinion!!

> And on a final note, just because you fail to see the value in something
> for your own purposes does not mean it is without value, or 'bull'.
> Calm down a little.  You are not the only person on the list to have
> written firmware or operating systems code.

Maybe not, but I shall leave you with this:  If hard-disk drives ever go
to a "4K and ONLY 4K sectors" design, exactly what do you think that will
do to almost every DOS system I have ever heard of, and a lot of Windows/
Linux systems as well?   Make them functionally obsolete INSTANTLY maybe,
because they were not written for anything BUT 512-byte sectors??   Nor
have you at-ALL addressed my comments about all the HORSEPOWER available
in [so-called] "modern" disk drives, which SHOULD have room-enough in the
firmware for BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY!!   If the AHCI chip guys can do so,
why not hard-disk vendors as well??

Also, I do not know you and you do not know me, so WHO ARE YOU to assume
I am "irritated or in a bad mood"?!!   Are you in fact a COMMUNIST??   I
seem to recall THEY used to "operate" via trying to beat-DOWN opposition
with such unqualified INSULTS as you have thrown at me!!   So are we now
to think of you that way??

Learn to address THE POINT of a thread, boy, and keep your damn personal
INSULTS OUT of it!!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

p.s. to Pat Villani --

Sorry for the above, but, same as last year with Christian Masloch, this
boy simply went a bit TOO FAR!!