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That's the first name that came to mind as well. His primary tool, SpinRite, isn't about defragging disks, but data recovery. It goes directly to the hardware, and tries way harder than any OS would to try to recover data from bad sectors. He's got some recordings of himself diving into the details of how it works internally.
He co-hosts a weekly podcast, Security Now, which is well worth listening to IMO if you're a geek with any sort of interest in computer security--only, without the clickbait-y headlines you'll see everywhere else. Still, he manages to find the time to keep coding, in assembler of all things, and is just about ready to release a new update to Spin-Rite (the first in nearly 20 years), if it hasn't happened yet.
The first time I heard of him, I believe, he was sounding some alarms about the way MS implemented their TCP/IP stack on XP (if I recall) and people were being rather dismissive of his warnings...but in the end, that's when MS had to introduce their built-in firewall in SP2.
I've been listening to his weekly podcast for years now, and clearly he's no quack, he takes the time to do his research and presents things in a logical and sound way, and he's a real stickler for accuracy. And the few times he's been wrong about anything, he's always owned up.
One type of comment you'll often come across regarding SpinRite is that it can actually be harmful to the hardware, because it's trying so hard to recover data. But those comments are typically coming from those who believe their actual hard disk is worth more than the information you're trying to recover, which goes against the very reason you want a tool that tries hard to recover data from a drive that has gone bad. SpinRite also has a maintenance mode, which is intended to be run regularly on drives that still have life left in them.
Anyway, I don't know what it is the OP was after (other than recalling the name), so I don't know if any of this is of any use. But, I've grown to be a fan, and I rarely miss an opportunity to present him in the positive light I honestly believe he deserves.
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I think you may be referring to Steve Gibson at GRC.com. All his utilities are written in pure assembly language and the majority of his utilities are freeware.
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Piriform Defraggler?
GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
The shortest horror story: On Error Resume Next
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Chris - make sure CP's backups are golden. This thread is an excellent example of the priceless information that pops up from time to time.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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ditto
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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Your question makes me think even further back, when we could increase disk performance by formatting the disk with the proper interleaving factor. I can't remember, though: Was the interleave factor a parameter to the DOS 'format' command? Or was an external format program required? If so, what were the names of those programs?
For the youngsters: Interleaving meant that 'logical' disk sectors 0, 1, 2, ... were allocated at physical sectors 0, 2, 4, ... or 0, 3, 6, ... The disk electronics were so slow that after reading sector 0, it didn't 'recover' to read physical sector 1 until its sector head had passed, so you had to wait for a full rotation of the disk to read sector 1. Maybe the disk managed to make itself to read physical sector 2 in the time it took sector 1 passed, but maybe even this was not enough; it required the time for two physical sectors to pass, with logical sectors allocated on every third physical sectors. Obviously, the skipped sectors were not unused; they were allocated for the second and third rotation of the disk. To read an entire track, the disk had to spin 2 or 3 complete turns - but without interleaving it might require as many turns as a the number of sectors per track.
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.
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I remember those days, even the venerable 386SX. Hard to fill up that 40 meg drive.
Spinrite is the only program that I remember doing it. Don't recall it being a parameter of the DOS format command.
>64
It’s weird being the same age as old people.
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Me: "who would write GUI code in assembler? that's not 10x that's insane"
Also me: probably guilty of writing a few lines of inline-asm, in the distant past, to thunk from a static callback function pointer to an instance-method
Also also me: (closes this web page and resumes reading tutorial on WebAsm)
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Wordle 970 3/6*
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬛
⬛🟩🟨🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Wordle 970 5/6
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Wordle 970 3/6
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟨⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Wordle 970 3/6*
🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟨⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟩⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Rules for the FOSW ![ ^]
MessageBox.Show(!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(_signature)
? $"This is my signature:{Environment.NewLine}{_signature}": "404-Signature not found");
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⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟨🟨⬜🟩⬜
⬜🟩🟨🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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Wordle 970 4/6
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Wordle 970 4/6*
⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
🟨🟩🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟩🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have. -Anon
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. -Frederick Nietzsche
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Wordle 970 2/6
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Ok, I have had my coffee, so you can all come out now!
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Wordle 970 3/6
⬛⬛🟨⬛🟨
🟩🟩🟨⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Jeremy Falcon
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I'd like to go get another cup of coffee while installing yet another VS Code update. 
Jeremy Falcon
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If you walk to the nearest Starbucks and join the queue, the update should be part way through by the time you get back. Or maybe just waiting for you to click "Yes".
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I've only had one VSCode update take more than about 30 seconds, and that was because of a different (and extremely buggy) program taking over the CPU with what was effectively a thread / process bomb.
What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?
The metaphorical solid rear-end expulsions have impacted the metaphorical motorized bladed rotating air movement mechanism.
Do questions with multiple question marks annoy you???
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VSCODE updates are like vitamins. Once a day.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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My experience is the same, but there is always the chance of things going wrong.
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