>(In general try to avoid 'dc' because I really like to have the
>carrier detect stuff active, and tip exit if the connection breaks.)

I've never been able to use tip with a modem _without_ dc, at least
under NetBSD.  The error you see is from getting an I/O error because
carrier isn't asserted.

>I ran at 5 seonds for a while, but I'm a big chicken when it comes to
>disk spin-downs.  I basically feel guilty every time the head grinds
>against the media.  

I always thought those disks parked during a spindown.  I never really
worry about it, actually :-)

--Ken