Curt asks:

> The "NEW" option on FCOPY seems to mean 2 different things depending on if
>  you are copying to tape or disc.  Why?

My guess would be that the tape drive doesn't have a disc-like directory --
and that's what the NEW option is really addressing. It's saying: "only write
this file onto the disc if this name is new to me (and create it at the same
time)". The tape drive, intelligent as it may be, wouldn't know what to do
with that optional command.

"Stringy" discs aren't an impossibility, where a directory is stored at the
beginning of the tape. Prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, I used to write
tape-based operating systems for the Army Research Labs, but that was only
because they were prohibited from owning and using "automated data
processing" equipment (meaning computers), so we had to build everything from
scratch and disquise it as a standard lab instrument (your tax dollars at
work). Stringy discs do work, but they are obviously slower and more fragile.

Wirt Atmar