“Maybe twenty seconds. Then you’re protected if the power fails. Or maybe your computer. You can’t afford to have your material stored just in on[in on] your chip. It’s just temporary. You cut off the current a fraction of a second, it’ll forget everything. You’ve got to get your stuff on the disk ASAP.”
All right, I supposed my creative juices wouldn’t dry up during the half minute the disk drive was whirring.
“The ‘Save’ command on WordStar is KS,” Michael said. “Just hold down the ‘Control’ button on your computer while you’re doing that. Then you’ll hear a whir and the disk drive clicking away.” Somehow my Kaypro was coming across as an animal to be fed during training; the clicking could be the sound of a dog chomping up candied biscuits after a successful lesson.
“You’re also going to make backup disks,” Michael said. “Sort of like electronic carbon paper.”
“I don’t have time,” I said.
“You’ll find time. You can do it in just a minute or so. You can even use a scratch disk to be safe.”
“What’s a scratch disk?”
“Suppose the power failed or something went wrong with your machine while you were making your copy,” Michael said. “Then you could be up the creek without a paddle. You might lose both the original and the copy.”
“So?”
“That’s why you have a scratch disk. You copy on it first. If something goes haywire, then you’re still safe. Because, during your last work session, you made a backup.”