#: 8207 S9/Utilities
    15-Nov-90  22:04:39
Sb: #8121-#Cron help
Fm: Ted Miller 76545,457
To: Ken Drexler 75126,3427 (X)


Thanks for responding to my message concerning cron and your ramdisk driver.
Your message prompted me to start experimenting again and I've come up with the
following observations. When I start cron (i.e. cron -l&), and before cron
errors out, if I try to access the ramdisk I get an error 241 (sector error).
When cron errors out,after a minute has passed, I can access the ramdisk again
with no problem. The cronerrs file reports "cannot open /r0/sys/crontab". If I
try to start cron without forking (i.e. cron), and then press the Break key to
end the process, the ramdisk is permanantly scrambled. All I get is error 241
when the ramdisk is accessed. I have to deiniz the ramdisk and then iniz again
in order to use the ramdisk once more. BTW I have the same version of cron that
you have and I have no problem with cron when using Kevin Darlings ramdisk.

Here is another strange anomaly that I have noticed when using your ramdisk.
Recently I have been working on learning 'C'. To this end I use a simple
interface program called devsys that enables one to set the compiler
options,run the compiler and call an editor at the press of a key. I use a
version of 'cc' written by Pete Lyall that uses a ramdisk for all its files.
Ordinarily this combination works very well with your ramdisk. However I have
two boot disks, the only difference being that one has Vdgint installed and the
other one doesn't. When I boot with Vdgint installed I have problems with the
above setup. When 'devsys' calls 'cc' to compile my source code it errors out
with error 213 (non existing segment). However if I switch to another window
and call 'cc' manually the file compiles with no problems. Please note that the
existence of Vgdint in the boot has no bearing with cron not working

I couldn't even hazard a guess to what is going on. Right now the advantage of
the ease of calling and  removing your ramdisk outwieghs the above problems and
I thank you for supplying it.

Ted Miller

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