[RULE] Boot-floppy detect.

[Vegard Munthe]

> Feedback. All I need is some feedback to know if it works, and if anything
> needs to be changed to make it more useful or user friendly.

The floppy is great. Works like a charm. The next step (I can do this) is
to either output report.txt with sed o.o. so that the information is
presented on screen for a volunteer to write off manually and stick on the
computer/in the register, _or_ to output a PC ID so the volunteer can
write this ID on the PC, and then store the report.txt with this ID
(either in filename or in file) on the floppy so that we later can run a
new program on the floppy which extracts several reports and fills the
information into a database.

The latter is the most 'industrial' solution, but the former is far less
work programatically. I don't really want to ask you to do this, since it
would divert more time from RULE (which is more important), but I'll
explain what I will try to do: The 'SED' solution will have skripts for
printing a pretty message with the PC informatin on screen. It should look
somewhat like this:

CPU:   PI 200 MMX
MEM:   32 MB
DISK:  500 MB (This has to be calculated from reportdata)
DISK:  800 MB
VIDEO: SiS 6326 (86C326)
CDROM: Philips PCA403CDA

The latter solution is something I am working on the backend database for,
and would need a method to save the report.txt file with a generated ID
which is unique _for that floppy_, and a method to store several reports.
I would then use my software to extract the reports and fill inn the
information in our computer register. This information is then used to
give recipients of computer equipment a list of the hardware and to make
statistical reports on what effect different types of hardware have in
projects.

This disk is a great help. After this detect-disk is ready for use, the
next step (don't think it ever ends! :) for me is to generate some sort of
automatic testfloppy. This is far more difficult since we have to agree on
a level of tests that ensures a high percent of faulty hardware gets
sorted out for further manual tests. Here I was thinking on a simple
memtest, short write to harddisk test, mouse/keyboardtest, and video test.
I'm collecting software for this, and will probably be using the
slinky-detect floppy for this. Today all testing is done manually all over
the world, and results usually in poor or no testing. Therefore such a
disk makes a difference, and you have started rolling the ball. If you
would like to help making these, please do, but make sure you think the
effort is as rewarding as whatever other work you didn't get to do because
of this. I especially don't want to hamper RULE by bogging one of the
maintainers with other work. :)

> Oh, and commando-soldiers, I could use some commandos.... ;)

SIR, YES, SIR! Inbound Oh-Eight-Hundred-Hours SIR!

-- Vego



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