On 6/7/2011 10:13, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> So, essentially, your entire argument is "the user can eject the disk at any
> time, therefore it's unsafe to cache anything".

No. It's unsafe to cache data structures that have interrelationships. It's 
unsafe to cache the data a pointer points to in RAM while writing the 
pointer back to disk.

The FAT *is* cached. It's just *also* flushed when you close each file.

How would you tell the machine it's time to write the cache to the floppy?

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the contents of the disk be
> irrepairably corrupted *anyway*?

No. That's the point. You write things in the order that makes the files not 
corrupted if you remove them. That's why if you chkdsk a floppy after 
writing files but not closing them, you get "CHKDSK.001" type files.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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