February 29, 2008
Dear Joseph,
It explains a lot about the interrupt thing, but I have pressed
reset while the web browser is open, or even I am using the word
processor. Why doesn't this happen on the MPower?
From,
Bobby Cavanaugh
Cell: 206-418-8763
----- Original Message -----
From: Joseph Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: bob cavanaugh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED],[email protected]
Date sent: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:18:33 -0800
Subject: re: [Braillenote] PK flash disk not available
Hi Bob,
Kevin knows more about this than I do, but
here's my hypothesis:
Whenever an operating system needs to access
data, it will send a signal to storage device
to prepare the data. For example, whchever
the BrailleNote needs to open the address
list to lookup an address, it will tell the
Flash Disk to find KeyList definition file
and have it ready. While the Flash is
preparing the file, KeySoft is doing other
thing, such as playing media files. When the
file in question is ready, Flash sends the
"ready" signal to the operating system,
telling it that it can now access the data on
the storage device, thus allowing a user to
lookup an address. This is called an
interrupt - a task might interrupt a device
from doing another thing and may tell it to
do something. When it is done with that
task, the device will return to do whatever
it was doing before the task in question
called the interrupt (Alex, am I right?).
This is the reason why you get some delay
when looking up an address, opening planner,
etc.
Here's a scenario that might explain Vicky's
problem: the user might have pressed the
Reset button (or the right Control keys
called C 3 and C 4) while the Flash Disk is
being accessed. If this happens, by the time
the BrailleNote returns to main menu, it will
detect that there is something going on with
the Flash Disk (from unfinished operation
before the user pressed Reset button) and
might prescht the following message:
The Flash Disk is unavailable, please press
Reset.
So my hypothesis is this: because the user
pressed Reset while the Flash Disk was being
"read" or accessed, it will create a "loop" -
where one task will repeat itself over and
over again - that will make Flash Disk
temporarily unavailable and might cause this
error to appear. In other words, the task
that was used to read information from Flash
Disk might not have been stopped by press of
the Reset, thereby creating a situation where
Flash Disk was not accessible for some time.
Here's my proposal: I'm about 90% confident
that it is something wrong with the
"unfinished" task. So, a likely solution
would be a simple Reset that might tell the
"unfinished task" to stop, thus allowing
Flash Disk to be visible again.
Er, I think my post was somewhat
complicated... I guess an experienced
programmer like Alex would be able to explain
this in simple language. Hope this post
explains a lot (or at least give you a
picture of why this error might occur).
Cheers,
Joseph P.S. I guess I should have written
this down as part of the "Five Common Issues"
article.
----- Original Message -----
From: bob cavanaugh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: vicky collins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[email protected]
Date sent: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:05:07 -0800
Subject: re: [Braillenote] PK flash disk not
available
February 28, 2008
Dear All,
Why does the flash disk on the pk disappear
so much?
From,
Bobby Cavanaugh
Cell: 206-418-8763
----- Original Message -----
From: vicky collins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Braillenote
<[email protected]
Date sent: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:59:21 -0500
Subject: [Braillenote] PK flash disk not
available
Hi All,
First, grin, the flash disk on my PK is
indeed available, at
least for now. However, as those of you who
have been on the
list for awhile know, the PK flash disk can
disappear on
occasion. And, mine as been no exception in
this regard.
Anyway, you might also recall that some of us
have avoided
sending our units back to Humanware by
connecting our PK to our
PC via its serial port, and then going into
Hyperterminal on the
PC and issuing some commands to restore the
flash disk to the PK.
However, in my case, my LapTalk PC that I had
for over the last
four years finally quit working. And, I
replaced it with a
Toshiba laptop, a laptop that doesn't have a
serial port.
Thus, after all this, as I'm reasonably sure
my PK flash disk
will die again at some point, I'm wondering
if anyone has
restored their flash disk without having to
connect the PK to the
PC via a serial port? I'm guessing it can't
be done by Usb, as
Dean Jackson told me it had to be the serial
port when he first
showed me how to fix this problem. So, if
nothing has changed
since then, and I'm guessing it hasn't,
perhaps someone has fixed
this problem with their PK via a serial to
USB adapter? Oh, I'm
using the Windows Vista Premium operating
system on this new PC.
Any comments or suggestions would be
appreciated.
Thanks.
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