From: Bruce Thompson <bruce_at_otherother.com>
Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 07:27:39 -0800

On Monday, November 4, 2002, at 03:04 AM, Linus Nielsen Feltzing wrote:

>
        [ Snip ]

> Updating the read access time is very unnecessary, drains battery,
> takes time and is potentially dangerous.
>
> /Linus
>
>
Hi,
     I've just recently started using RockBox and I've got to say I'm
impressed! I want to start off with a big thank you to the development
team.

     Linus, read access time updating enables what would be for me a
very powerful way to create playlists.

     I've currently got a Java app that manages the space on my JB6K and
generates playlists that I listen to during the day. My music library
is considerably larger than the 6Meg my Jukebox stores (I'll upgrade
the drive someday, but for now it's fine). The app manages the space by
removing files that are known not to be in use by a playlist and
removes playlists as necessary to make files available for deletion as
necessary. For generating a playlist it simply shuffles the entire
library and pulls out <n> songs to add to the list.

     What I'd really like to be able to do is to write a playlist
generator that prioritizes the list based on several criteria. Some
criteria include: Favorite albums, favorite artists, favorite genres,
and not recently played. This last criteria is the most interesting to
me right now. I'd really like to be able to "randomly" rotate through
my entire collection. Granted, I can tell when tracks have been used in
playlists, but that doesn't tell me what playlists I've played, nor if
I've made it all the way through them.

     As you mention there is potential for damage if a write fails
badly. It seems to me that spinning up the disk is the biggest power
drain and thus the most likely to fail if the batteries are low.
Perhaps the access time could be written right after the initial read
when starting a file. Another possibility could be to check the battery
level and if it's below a low watermark then don't do the write.

     This does beg the question: Does the JB6K know what time it is?

        Cheers,
        Bruce.
Received on 2002-11-04