[comp.sys.apple] various GS/OS 5.0

TMPLee@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL (08/17/89)

a) WordPerfect 2.1e fixes the problem of not being able to save over an
existing file.  Presumably other vendor's upgrades/fixes will do the
same thing.  Musta been a minor toolbox interface change.

b) GS/OS is now such a memory hog I'm thinking about adding some more.
1.25 meg ain't enough, I guess.  When I do so I'm thinking about getting
a battery backed up kind so I can keep my most used stuff in quasi-ROM
(that's what I call it.)  Question -- is there any way of putting only
the most frequently used parts of the system into that RAM/ROM while the
rest stays on the hard drive?  How would I even know what "most
frequently used" is?  What stays memory resident between applications?
(once you load a tools does it need to be reloaded, for instance?)
What, if anything, stays resident when you run P8 and a P8 application?

c) In the same spirit, sort of.  The original P16 was a shell than ran
on top of ProDos8.  Will there ever be a P8 that runs as a shell on top
of GS/OS rather than as a separate program?  What about BASIC.SYSTEM for
that matter -- it is a shell/interface between the Microsoft Basic in
ROM and P8 -- could it not instead be an interface to GS/OS (which now
that I think about it would almost eliminate the need for P8 ...  oops,
I guess not, you still have to service old 6502 machine language
programs that are calling the P8 MLI.)

d) is there now under Sysdisk 5.0 (I'm sorry, I dont' know what version
of GS/OS it is that is on it) any way of reconfiguring RAM5 without
cycling the cpu power?  I thought I had figured out how to use the
shutdown menu item under 4.0 (although never consistently) but now
that's gone.

'nuff for now

TMPLee@Dockmaster.ncsc.mil

UD161733@VM1.NODAK.EDU (Mike Aos) (08/18/89)

I dunno what you mean by cycle the CPU power (I think that's what you said),
but I do know you can hit control-open-apple-option-reset, and the new settings
will take effect.  This eliminated shutting the entire machine off, as I've
seen many people do.

Osiris

dlyons@Apple.COM (David Lyons) (08/18/89)

In article <890817060624.026464@DOCKMASTER.ARPA> TMPLee@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL writes:
>[...] Question -- is there any way of putting only
>the most frequently used parts of the system into that RAM/ROM while the
>rest stays on the hard drive?

Nope.  (Although to some extent the system *already* does this [in regular
RAM, not with your RAMdisk].  When toolsets and drivers are no longer needed,
for example, they are marked "purgable."  When they're needed again, they
are often still in memory & don't need to be reloaded from disk.)

>How would I even know what "most
>frequently used" is?  What stays memory resident between applications?
>(once you load a tools does it need to be reloaded, for instance?)
>What, if anything, stays resident when you run P8 and a P8 application?

Under 5.0, most of GS/OS & its drivers stay in memory (although they
aren't being used) while you're in P8.

>c) In the same spirit, sort of.  The original P16 was a shell than ran
>on top of ProDos8.  Will there ever be a P8 that runs as a shell on top
>of GS/OS rather than as a separate program?

That's a very interesting question, but the answer is probably "never."
There was a discussion of this idea many months ago on AppleLink--PE,
and it turns out that there are some hefty technical problems with
letting the system work that way.

The toughest problem I remember at the moment is that P8 applications are
allowed to do direct access to devices (SmartPort calls, ProDOS block-level
calls), and GS/OS explicitly forbids this.

>What about BASIC.SYSTEM for
>that matter -- it is a shell/interface between the Microsoft Basic in
>ROM and P8 -- could it not instead be an interface to GS/OS (which now
>that I think about it would almost eliminate the need for P8 ...  oops,
>I guess not, you still have to service old 6502 machine language
>programs that are calling the P8 MLI.)

Also interesting, but Applesoft is pretty much permanently limited to running
in bank 0 (only 64K, and a fair amount of it is already taken up by GS/OS).

>d) is there now under Sysdisk 5.0 (I'm sorry, I dont' know what version
>of GS/OS it is that is on it) any way of reconfiguring RAM5 without
>cycling the cpu power?  I thought I had figured out how to use the
>shutdown menu item under 4.0 (although never consistently) but now
>that's gone.

(System Software 5.0 includes GS/OS 3.0, by the way.)

First, you can always resize RAM5 by starting a self-test and then hitting
Apple-Ctrl-Reset.

System Software 5.0 doesn't provide a new way to resize it with ROM 01, but
there are 3 ways to do it with ROM 3:

  1. Apple-Shift-Ctrl-Reset
  2. Choose "Resize after Reset" in the RAM Disk section of the Control
     Panel CDA (text).  This is a "one time" option...it doesn't stay
     chosen.
  3. Check the "Resize after reset" check box in the System Software 5.0
     "RAM" CDev.


 --Dave Lyons, Apple Computer, Inc.          |   DAL Systems
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