mwm%ucbopal@BERKELEY.EDU@caip.RUTGERS.EDU (02/08/86)
From: Mike (I'll be mellow when I'm dead) Meyer <mwm%ucbopal@BERKELEY.EDU> One of each, actually. I know the Commmodore people are listening, and I hope this gets heard by someone who will consider it, and heard in time for 1.2 (1.3?). My apologies if this has been considered and discarded, but I'd like to know why. For the WorkBench, change the format for .info files. Instead of having one per object, have one per directory, with all info for all icons stored in that file. It will require a re-write of the Icon editor (just slightly), a tool for moving icons in the file, and a tool for converting old Icons to new ones. However it should make opening drawers *MUCH* faster. You only have to get one file, and don't have to do the glob search. Of course, before doing this, you should instrument the WorkBench and make sure that that really is where the time to open a drawer is going. For AmigaDOS, add two things to the data structure for files. 1) an "owner" field - a byte should do fine, a short would be nice for future expansion. Second, double the protection bits to get owner/non-owner sets. With what most people are liable to have, this won't make much difference. But without some kind of protection, I don't think it'll ever fly in a business market. After all, who's going to put sensitive data on their hard disk if any secretary/salesman can change it (you assume the programmers can change it, and trust them :-)? Thanx, <mike
LAVITSKY@BLUE.RUTGERS.EDU@caip.RUTGERS.EDU (02/08/86)
From: Eric <LAVITSKY@BLUE.RUTGERS.EDU> Hi, One other thing I'd really like to see in the next release of the OS: The ability to boot off an external drive! This should be a fairly trivial thing to do and presents many advantages. Consider the following scenario: You use your Amiga to monitor a home intruder control system or you use it to control your answering machine (Answermate?). While you are away, the power goes out... when power is restored, the Amiga sits there waiting for you to insert the Kickstart disk. You thought of this ahead of time, so you left a Kickstart disk in the internal drive... fine. Now after the OS is loaded, what happens? - now it wants someone to be present to insert a Workbench disk in the internal drive... luckily, the folks at Amiga modified the current OS to sequentially search every drive on the system for a disk that it can boot Workbench off of, and you left a Workbench disk with a startup script to get your system going again in the external drive, whew! As far as I can tell, this is trivial to do - if the internal drive isn't a Workbench disk and since you can tell from hardware registers and messages whether a disk is inserted or not, you should easily be able to go up the device chain looking for a Workbench. This *may* even make it possible to boot of a hard disk! (???) Let me know what you all think... Thanks, Eric -------
lbg@gitpyr.UUCP (Lee B Grey) (02/10/86)
I'd like to see a new version of copy that copies (1) the filenote with the file, and (most importantly!) (2) the date of the file's last mod. I have little use for the date of the copying. You can't tell how up-to-date your backups are! Am I alone in this? Lee
acs@amdahl.UUCP (Tony Sumrall) (02/11/86)
In article <1233@caip.RUTGERS.EDU> LAVITSKY@BLUE.RUTGERS.EDU@caip.RUTGERS.EDU writes: > One other thing I'd really like to see in the next release of the > OS: > > The ability to boot off an external drive! Even though I do *not* have an external drive (yet) I agree completely (and, in fact, can't imagine who would disagree--so maybe this posting is a bit meaningless). -- Tony Sumrall ...!{ihnp4,hplabs,amd,sun}!amdahl!acs [ Opinions expressed herein are the author's and should not be construed to reflect the views of Amdahl Corp. or its employees. ]
acs@amdahl.UUCP (Tony Sumrall) (02/14/86)
In article <1362@gitpyr.UUCP> lbg@gitpyr.UUCP (Lee B Grey) writes: > I'd like to see a new version of copy that copies (1) the filenote with > the file, and (most importantly!) (2) the date of the file's last mod. > I have little use for the date of the copying. You can't tell how > up-to-date your backups are! Am I alone in this? > > Lee No, you're not alone--I agree and (like I said in a previous posting) I can't imagine anyone that would *not* agree so maybe this posting is meaningless. :-) -- Tony Sumrall ...!{ihnp4,hplabs,amd,sun}!amdahl!acs [ Opinions expressed herein are the author's and should not be construed to reflect the views of Amdahl Corp. ]