[NTLK] ATA Support News

From: Paul Guyot (pguyot_at_kallisys.net)
Date: Thu Nov 15 2001 - 17:55:04 EST


Hi all,

I'm doing a collective message because I got a lot of mails about ATA
support 1.0b9 which expired 10 days ago.

The project (letting you to use ATA cards (such as CF cards) on any
NewtonOS 2.x device) isn't abandonned, on the contrary, I'm trying to
release a satisfying version as soon as possible (and if ever I
abandon it, I'll open source it). However, I've been very busy
recently so I haven't been able to make the current version stable
enough to release it and I was so exhausted that I caught something
that look like bronchitis.

Anyway, I've found some time to work on it tonight, although with a
couple of bug fixes, it's not usable yet. The thing is that I've done
major changes. And I probably won't be able to work on it until
Saturday or Sunday morning (I'm doing what I can, but I guess that
you'll admit that there might be things that come first in my
priorities such as studies, sport or social life, and additionally,
I'm so tired that I can scare anyone if I take out my glasses).
Technically, I'm not working on anything else (I mean among
development projects) unless I don't have enough time to do a slice
of ATA Support debugging. I'm mostly answering to mails during
compilations of ATA Support (right now for example), hence all the
messages I left unanswered. In a nutshell, I'm doing all I can to
release 1.0b10 as soon as possible.

FYI, this new version will not include the fix I found for cards
which cannot be partitioned. The problem was that these cards work in
some bus modes for reading but not for writing. I'm not totally
satisfied with the solution I've partially coded, and to prevent you
from having to reformat your cards, I decided to schedule this change
and not include it into 1.0b10. It will come quickly, though. Once
this change has been fixed, now that I have two ATA cards (including
one which has this problem hence the fact that I've been able to fix
it), I'll use one ATA card for storage and another for development.
This way, I'll see how useful the software is and if it can be
honestly released as a final version.

So technically, 1.0b10 will be released as soon as the big changes in
the store engine I've brought have been debugged. I have no idea of
how long this will take. Debugging of the store engine took a very
long time, but I haven't done algorithm intensive parts this time. If
I made these changes, it's to optimize the transfer rate (once it
will be debugged, I'll benchmark the improvements).

1.0b10 already includes several other changes. For example, the beta
expired alert is now only a warning (i.e. the software still works)
because, although I don't have the intention to catch a bronchitis
again, we never know.

For users who have data on ATA cards: ATA Support expiration date
testing is dumb. Just go back before inserting the card, insert the
card and reset the date to the proper value.

As usual, sorry for the inconvenience.

Paul

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