Disk Library Tips

Most experienced computerists have systems and procedures for keeping track of their disks. Here are some of the better ones we've seen over the years.  

* As soon as you buy a new box of disks, open it. As soon as you open a box of disks, format every disk in the box . As soon as you format a disk, attach a blank label to it. This process will ensure that you never have to stop what you're doing to format a disk.

* If you can avoid it, never give two diskettes the same ID, because some programs can become confused by duplicates. A good system is to assign ID's in a regular alphabetical sequence: AA,AB,AC ,AD, and so on. Wherever you keep your disks, if you also keep a card that shows the ID's you've assigned to date, you' ll easily be able to avoid duplicates.

* Reserving certain disks for certain categories of programs often makes it easier to find what you're looking for. Common categories are utilities, sound and music, games, word processing files and so forth.

* Put your most-frequently-used pro- gram first on the disk, where it can be loaded by LOAD"*",8 or similar automated command.

* Don't try to use all the space on a disk, because you need space to update programs and data. Leaving 50-200 blks. free is wonderful insurance against overflow.

* Keep one or two disks on hand exclusively for use in program development. As you work on new programs, save all your intermediate versions to one of these disks. Then, when a program is "finalized," put it on a different disk and erase all the previous versions. This saves wear and tear on your good disks, and lessens the chance that you'll ruin one of them by mistake.

* Print out each disk's directory, and keep the hard copy close to the disk itself. Some people tape it to the disk envelope, while others keep it inside the envelope.