I shall add my "two-cents worth" to the current philosophical discussion about 4K sectors as follows --
To me, the most disturbing thing about "modern" PC systems is their ABSOLUTE LACK of concern for backward compatibility! We really did NOT need the PCI bus in 1994, except that Intel wanted to sell PCI chips and thus found ways to discredit and force out-of-business the VESA bus. We really did NOT need PCI-X video cards in the past 5 years, except that somebody [guess who!] desired to sell THOSE chips too, and so found ways to discredit and force out-of-business AGP video cards. We really did NOT need AHCI controllers and all the MONSTROUS software drivers needed with them, except that "the industry" again desired us all to "buy something new" and thus increase the profits in Santa Clara, CA and Redmond, WA. I still say a properly-written SATA/IDE driver, without any terribly SLOW "C" interrupt logic [maybe using an old-friend of mine called "Horror of Horrors" ASSEMBLY code!], probably COULD have done a much faster job of hard disk I-O in Windows/Linux! How do I say this?? Because in 2008, when I asked Lucho about UIDE speed v.s. Windows, he replied "You beat THEM, 2 months ago"! Finally, we really do NOT need mainboard makers [all from one island in the South China Sea] who support their products for only a few months, then DROP all such support when their NEXT "Piece of S***" is ready to be stuffed down our throats! And now we have 4K sectors for hard-disk drives, which I note some feel shall ultimately replace 512-byte sectors. If so, another step BACKWARD in terms of "user friendliness" for the poor-old PC industry. Even the AHCI A**holes still provide some sort of "legacy" or "IDE compatible" mode, for most BIOS chips and with most mainboards! If "4K and ONLY 4K sectors" ever happens, I might just begin cheering for IPads and other alternatives, then "Sit back and watch!" the PC industry lose ALL its business, just like IBM lost control of PCs in 1985!! "In the name of progress" like the Wintel Consortium tries to make us all believe, the PC industry simply CANNOT get rid of an I-O format with 30 years of history behind it (or 50+ when one includes mainframes/minicomputers!) and all that software expecting to USE such a format! If hard-disk "firmware" has become so good that it can allow 64-MB on-board write caches, then I hope they might ALSO realize it is "more in their best interest" to continue handling 512-byte sectors, however they can, and even in-parallel with handling 4K sectors if needed! I say again: My own UIDE driver (A) shall NOT include direct support for AHCI, due to the code-size needed and as "legacy" IDE handling is part of most AHCI chipsets, and (B) shall NOT include direct support for 4K hard-disk sectors, since no DOS system now supports them as well (nor likely ever will)! If the PC industry ever tries making this "mandatory", like they did in "Ramming down our throats!" such things as PCI, PCI-X, and now God-DAMNED AHCI, I plan to PITCH my entire PC system, then go into full retirement [or perhaps get an IPad or some- thing else, ANYTHING else but another damned PC, instead]! Jack R. Ellis ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Xperia(TM) PLAY It's a major breakthrough. An authentic gaming smartphone on the nation's most reliable network. And it wants your games. http://p.sf.net/sfu/verizon-sfdev _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
