> > What I'm driving at, for those who've seen it, is something
> > like the ability of the Mac to request floppies and other
> > removable media on demand.  While those demands sometimes
> > become irritating :-), it's more convenient than having to
> > catalog media in a text file.
>
> I like this idea about removable media being able to request
> media changes (kinda like tapes and disk packs on Big Iron).
>
> Instead of sending messages to the console tho, how about doing
> what dump(8) does: send a message to operator or root for media
> changes.  Of course if they're not logged in, no one will see
> the mesage tho.  Kinda nicer than doing icky stuff on console,
> but a hack none the less :-)

Well, if you want to duplicate "Big Iron" functionality in this
area, why not also implement an "operator message" subsystem
where an application can request and wait for operator
intervention (and operator reply)?  Simply spitting these
messages out to "random" terminals via syslog(3) or directly to
the console seem like really bad hacks.

- H=E5vard