Getting Started with Putridos


Q.  
     I recently got PutriDos for my machine, but I can't get it to 
boot up.  What's wrong?

A.  
     There's nothing wrong.  The version you have is copy-protected.  
Since anything that can be read can be copied if a pirate is clever 
enough, the disk is actually read-protected.  That version of PutriDos 
can't be booted up or otherwise used.  

     For those of a technical bent, the copy protection has two  
levels.  For the first level, whenever the system succeeds in reading 
the disk it assumes the copy protection has been defeated and refuses 
to go further.  The second level of defense is that all copies of the 
distribution disk are bulk-erased before shipment.


Q.
     Whenever I boot up with Putri-DOS the system asks me if I want to 
format the hard drives.  Why does it do this?  

A.
     That version is put out by Putri-Comp, which also makes hardware.  
Their first hard drives were rather unreliable, especially during 
power-up and power-down.  Users got into the habit of leaving their 
machines on all the time, turning them off only to replace a hard 
drive.  It was natural, then, for machine that was powering up to 
assume it had a newly replaced hard drive that would need formatting.  

     Eventually Putri-Comp started making machines with two hard 
drives.  Then a machine being powered up would be likely to have only 
one brand-new drive, with the other still containing old data the user 
might want to keep.  The obvious solution to this was to make the 
hard-drive formatting optional so the user could retain the data on 
the old drive.  Thus the question you see at power-up.  

     Even though drives have improved since then, Putri-Comp has not 
changed the startup routines.  Rumor has it they believe the rest of 
the industry got the idea of RAM drives (which also need to be 
formatted on power-up) from watching Putri-Comp users always having to 
reformat their original bad hard drives, and are leaving the question 
in as evidence should they decide to sue. 


                         Tom Digby
                         bubbles@well.sf.ca.us 
                         for Putri-DOS Users' Group