roy@nlm-vax.ARPA (Roy Standing) (11/13/85)
Several people responded to my request for help to get Swicher to automatically load a setup document, THANK YOU all. In addition, I received a question on how I set things up. In brief: 1. To setup a boot disk which automatically creates a RAMdisk and copies the system etc. to it. The Assimilation Process RAMdisk setup program allows you to have the RAMdisk created automatically at startup. Given the 2Meg Mac, I specified an 800K RAMdisk and automatic creation. The setup program requires you to select programs to be automatically copied to the RAMdisk. I chose the system files (system, finder, desktop, imagewriter), switcher, and switcher.startup. Desktop may not be necessary. The RAMdisk is automatically created during the boot process and when the desktop appears the RAMdisk is the active system disk. 2. To make Switcher the startup application on the RAMdisk. After running the RAMdisk setup program, select switcher and select it as the startup application via the 'Set Startup' option under the Special menu. Alternatively, from the RAMdisk desktop change the active system disk by selecting and executing FINDER from the boot floppy while depressing 'option' and 'command' keys. Then make Switcher the startup application via 'Set Startup'. After booting, setting up the RAMdisk, copying files to it, and making it the active system disk, Switcher will be executed. 3. To make Switcher automatically load a setup document. Name the setup document 'switcher.startup' (case insensitive). The setup file is loaded and Switcher automatically puts you in partition 1. Restriction: There is one unfortunate, albeit expected, drawback. If I eject the boot floppy it is immediately asked for. The reason seems to be that if overlays, etc. are needed the disk must be present. I had hoped to be able to load my desired application set, keep my RAMdisk as empty as possible, and eject the boot disk giving me two available floppy drives. I will have to chose between copying the applications to the RAMdisk or occupying a physical drive with the boot floppy. All in all not too bad a decision to face. Summary: This setup seems very useful. I now have four Monster Macs and am showing users how to take advantage of the extra RAM.
dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois) (11/13/85)
> > [Poster describes setup process for use of Levco upgrade, with a big > ramdisk, on which the switcher is the startup application and reads > the startup document. Then...] > Restriction: There is one unfortunate, albeit expected, drawback. If > I eject the boot floppy it is immediately asked for. The reason seems > to be that if overlays, etc. are needed the disk must be present. I > had hoped to be able to load my desired application set, keep my RAMdisk > as empty as possible, and eject the boot disk giving me two available > floppy drives. I will have to chose between copying the applications to > the RAMdisk or occupying a physical drive with the boot floppy. All in > all not too bad a decision to face. I have a question related to this. I typically load a system file, printer driver, and MacWrite into a ram disk, with the minifinder as the startup application. When the minifinder puts up its window, I toss the boot disk and run MacWrite from the Ramdisk - this allows me two data drives. Usually, anyway. That's what I do at home, on my Mac purchased in March 1985. We just got another Mac here at work, and when I do the *same* thing, as soon as I try to launch MacWrite, it asks for the boot disk. If I put it back in, quit MacWrite, then launch it again from the ramdisk, it does *not* ask for the boot disk. Why the difference between the two Macs? Why the different behavior on the two launches? -- | Paul DuBois {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois --+-- | "The voice of the Lord is full of majesty." | Psalm 29:4