[Coco] Drivewire on an older computer via USB

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 31 January 2015 09:50:26 Francis Swygert did opine
And Gene did reply:
> Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 22:51:44 -0800
> From: "K. Pruitt" <pruittk at roadrunner.com>
> 
> The computer I use for my drivewire server is an older computer.  It's
> a 997mhz Pentium 3 with 512 megs of memory running XP service pack 2.
> 
> Drivewire, more specifically java, strains my system to the limit at
> times. Consequently drivewire crashes on my system quite easily if the
> stars are not aligned just right.
> 
> I've limited that somewhat by giving java all the memory it wants -
> which it seems to like, and occasionally takes.
> 
> But recently I moved my drivewire directory and my Coco directory (it
> holds all my .dsk files) to a USB 2.0 thumbdrive and everything is
> running so much smoother and reliably as a result.  There seems to be
> a slight increase in speed, but it may be just the amazing increase in
> the smoothness of the system that may make it just appear to be
> faster.
> 
> So, putting your stuff on a thumbdrive may make things run smoother for
> you if you're having issues.
> 
> ===================================
> 
> Sounds like you may have a hard drive or controller issue. Could just
> be the drive controller driver or the way Java accesses the HD, I
> suppose. If it's the driver or controller this may only work on
> certain models of computers. Still, this is a good tip that may help
> someone with an older computer. Hmm... maybe it's the way Java
> accesses the thumbdrive....
> 
> 
> Frank Swygert
> Fix-It-Frank Handyman Service
> 803-604-6548

I would want to point out that the "thumbdrive" is flashrom, and in that 
service may have a short life in any instance where there is filesystem 
read-write cycles in the background.  There is no failure warning built 
into them, so I would want to keep a backup, done daily at least, 
someplace on the HD so that when the failure does hit, its just a matter 
of plugging in a new drive and dsaving your backup to it to resume.  You 
would potentially lose a days work, depending on your own creative 
schedule.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
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