[net.micro.mac] RamDisks: Belt and Suspenders

vishniac@wanginst.UUCP (Ephraim Vishniac) (05/31/85)

In an earlier posting, I mentioned that the Assimilation Process
ramdisk software uses a "belt and suspenders" approach to avoiding
ejection.  It marks itself non-ejectable (by tagging its drive queue
entry), but will also re-mount itself if you eject it (by clearing the
tag in the drive queue, for example).  I wondered why the author
bothered.

Answer: because some programs don't care if the disk is marked
non-ejectable.  ResEdit, for example, doesn't hesitate a moment to
throw out a supposedly non-ejectable disk.  I should check to see
if the standard file dialogs respect the flag; I wouldn't be surprised
if they don't.

On the positive side, the hardware for which I'm writing this ramdisk
is progressing nicely.  Yesterday, we had the ramdisk running with both
an additional half-meg (1 meg total) and an additional full meg (1.5 meg
total).  It was a real pleasure to see "512K in disk; 518K available" *and*
have full "Fat Mac" heap sizes.  For example, I can open a fair-sized
MacDraw document from the desktop and be ready to edit in <10 seconds.

*****Not exactly a disclaimer:
This hardware/software will be available through
Mass Tech Development Labs.  I'm not a Mass Tech employee, but I am
writing the ramdisk software for them.  (They're all hardware types.)
I know nothing about pricing, availability, warranties, etc.  I can 
only certify that the hardware is real.  They supposedly have an ad
in the current MacWorld; see that for their address and phone number.

-- 
Ephraim Vishniac
  [apollo, bbncca, cadmus, decvax, harvard, linus, masscomp]!wanginst!vishniac
  vishniac%Wang-Inst@Csnet-Relay