[net.micro.mac] HardDisk20, HFS, Fortran

tedi@mmintl.UUCP (Ted Ives) (12/16/85)

The Hard Disk 20 appears to have a fatal flaw; many (if not MOST) serious
commercial applications just plain do not work with it.  I gather the
problem is not the Hard disk, but Finder 5.0 (i.e. HFS); since many
applications seem to assume Finder 1.0 is being run, they just go south when
they are installed on the hard disk.  I went to a dealer who showed  me a
page-long list of applications that don't work, and I know from personal
experience that this is true for Microsoft(i.e. Absoft ) MacFortran and for
Assimilation Process' RamDisk.   Fortran doesn't work at all, and the
RamDisk will work with some cajoling, but can't be automatically created at
startup.  



FLAME ON:

  I rather resent being used as a GUINEA PIG for Apple's new Finder.
Nowhere in the manual for the disk drive did I find anything indicating that
there might be problems with it.  I suggest Apple stamp something on the box
like " Warning : We recommend storing only TEXT FILES on this disk drive.
anything else may cause all kinds of bad things to happen. "  (What if when
 something 'goes south' it ruins things on my disk drive?)

FLAME OFF.

QUESTION : Does anybody know of any way to either make MacFortran compatible
with Finder 5.0   OR   (more likely) has anyone tried any other Hard Disk
Software on their HD20  (i.e. MacBottom 20 software or Hyperdrive 20 or
whatever).  Also, does anyone know if Apple plans on making Finder 5.0 backward-compatible with Finder 1.0 so I can maybe use off-the-shelf software? 

 			- Thanks in advance,
				Ted Ives

		philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!tedi
			or in January,
		harvard!dartvax!tedi

P.S.  I called Microsoft LONG-DISTANCE and after being bounced around for 45
minutes I finally got ahold of someone who knew what I was talking about.
This person said that the incompatibility is Apple's fault, not Microsoft's,
and therefore Microsoft feels that it should be corrected by Apple.  What a
copout.

t-jacobs@utah-cs.UUCP (Tony Jacobs) (12/19/85)

Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: HardDisk20, HFS, Fortran
References: <892@mmintl.UUCP>

The Finder is just another application and other apps could care less about
the version number of the Finder.  If there is a problem, it lies in the
system file and any new inits, or drivers that are new to support HFS.

I have tried to make HFS run with my HyperDrive10 with no luck.  The real
problem lies with the fact that General Computer needs to make new drivers
to be compatible with HFS.  I have the system and Finder 5.0 running on my
Mac but it does not make full advantage of the HFS.  There are also other
little problems.  When HFS boots up it looks for the HardDisk 20 file which
I believe contains some patches and installs them.  They are very likely to
be the cause of your grief.

It is also real likely that the new Roms will solve the problems with HFS.