mattd@Apple.COM (Matt Deatherage) (03/17/89)
Hello. I am Matt Deatherage, and I work for Apple in the Apple II Developer Technical Support group. After reading over people's shoulders for many months now, I've decided to try my hand at this (the fourth or fifth national network I regularly call). Most of you will properly recognize this as a non-event, but thanks to those who think there is some significance to this. I feel better already. Like Keith and Mark, I do this on my own time (I'm at home right now) and can't accept official-type questions through mail or on here. Anything sent in mail may or may not get answered. When I find another one of me (God, what a scary thought) I'll have more time to answer things in mail. Sorry, but resources are limited. Having gotten that pain-in-the-boat (stupid editor) out of the way, let me try my hand at a few topics I've seen lately. (If I do something majorly wrong, be gentle. I'm new at this.) Small C: David Douthitt writes: >But of course, you need to buy ORCA/M first. So there is a Small-C for >ORCA/M - is there a Small-C for *PRODOS? (I did that myself, with the ">"'s. I'm so proud.) ProDOS is a disk operating system. If you're looking for a program that does nothing but compile text files in small C, I don't think one exists. On the other side, Byte Works small C does require their ORCA/M 8-bit program, but that gives you an editor and utilities and a lot of other things that most people find handy when writing programs. It also comes with the source code to the compiler, so you can even do Bad Things Upon Small C if you so desire. (As if anyone would want to...) The Desktop program: ProDOS 8 through and through; it was a temporary solution to the problem that until Finder was written, Launcher was graphical; but wouldn't manipulate files, and System Utilities would manipulate files but wasn't graphical. Desktop used a non-standard interface (it had to do everything itself; the tools don't operate in double hi-res) and was not exactly what I would call enjoyable software. I personally never used it. (For those who said that Desktop was about twice as fast as Finder - that's not surprising since Double Hi-Res screens are 16K in size and super hi-res screens are 32K...) GS/OS: A while back, Kareth wrote that he was waiting for the native, true, GSOS.FST or something like that. I hope he's not holding his breath. GS/OS is an *abstract* file system, not a real one. I can't imagine an FST being written to actually create this abstract file system on media, especially since the details of how files are stored on the media are deliberately left *out* of GS/OS. Rather, the FSTs are pieces of code that implement the abstract file system as fully as possible within *existing* file systems (such as ProDOS, High Sierra or ISO 9660). This shouldn't imply that an FST couldn't or wouldn't be created for an entirely new file system, but there isn't a "GS/OS File System" for a GSOS.FST file to interpret. Make sense? Tell me if not, and I'll try using different words. That's all I've got; please let me know how I'm doing. ============================================================================== Matt Deatherage, Apple Computer, Inc. | "The opinions expressed in this tome Send PERSONAL mail ONLY (please) to: | should not be construed to imply that AppleLink PE: Matt DTS GEnie: AIIDTS | Apple Computer, Inc., or any of its AppleLink AE: DEATHERAGE1 | subsidiaries, in whole or in part, CompuServe: 76703,3030 | have any opinion on any subject." Usenet: I don't know - do you? | "So there." =============================================================================
wombat@claris.com (Scott Lindsey) (03/17/89)
From article <27447@apple.Apple.COM>, by mattd@Apple.COM (Matt Deatherage): That answer your .signature question? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ For uucp, wherever you get most of your feeds from (ames?)!apple!mattd Good to see you here. < ============================================================================== < Matt Deatherage, Apple Computer, Inc. | "The opinions expressed in this tome < Send PERSONAL mail ONLY (please) to: | should not be construed to imply that < AppleLink PE: Matt DTS GEnie: AIIDTS | Apple Computer, Inc., or any of its < AppleLink AE: DEATHERAGE1 | subsidiaries, in whole or in part, < CompuServe: 76703,3030 | have any opinion on any subject." < Usenet: I don't know - do you? | "So there." < ============================================================================= -- Scott Lindsey |"Cold and misty morning. I heard a warning borne in the air Claris Corp. | About an age of power when no one had an hour to spare" ames!claris!wombat| DISCLAIMER: These are not the opinions of Claris, Apple, wombat@claris.com | StyleWare, the author, or anyone else living or dead.
asd@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Kareth) (03/18/89)
In article <27447@apple.Apple.COM> mattd@Apple.COM (Matt Deatherage) writes: >Hello. I am Matt Deatherage, and I work for Apple in the Apple II Developer >Technical Support group. After reading over people's shoulders for many Hello Matt. Glad to have some more Apple folk posting. >GS/OS: A while back, Kareth wrote that he was waiting for the native, true, >GSOS.FST or something like that. I hope he's not holding his breath. GS/OS Certainly not. If I held my breath waiting for anything from Apple, I'd died of suffocation of waiting for a GS+ a long long time ago. >is an *abstract* file system, not a real one. I can't imagine an FST being >written to actually create this abstract file system on media, especially >since the details of how files are stored on the media are deliberately >left *out* of GS/OS. Rather, the FSTs are pieces of code that implement the >abstract file system as fully as possible within *existing* file systems >(such as ProDOS, High Sierra or ISO 9660). Absolutely correct. But the ProDOS fst is hardly taking care of implementing that file system to the full capability of GS/OS. I don't want to have 7 or so partitions on the Finder desktop for a 200 meg drive. It's crowded enough as it is with Ram, Rom, 2 5.25's and whatever 3.5's are opened, and the trash. Can only put 53? files in root directory. I know, why would ya want more?, well, how bout disks that just have icon, fonts, pics, stuff on em? Don't need no subdirectories for them. Ok, maybe partitions and the alike aren't too bad to work with, but I'd still prefer to have everything under one / like on UNIX. >This shouldn't imply that an FST couldn't or wouldn't be created for an >entirely new file system, but there isn't a "GS/OS File System" for a >GSOS.FST file to interpret. Isn't GS/OS capable of handling something in the Gigabyte range, with long file names (more than 64 char), etc, w/o having to resort to partitions and stuff? That's why there should be a GSOS.FST. Or maybe a PRO2.FST that will take care of handling the full power of GS/OS. kareth.
mattd@Apple.COM (Matt Deatherage) (03/18/89)
In article <1841@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> asd@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Kareth) writes: >Absolutely correct. But the ProDOS fst is hardly taking care of implementing >that file system to the full capability of GS/OS. I don't want to have 7 or >so partitions on the Finder desktop for a 200 meg drive. It's crowded >enough as it is with Ram, Rom, 2 5.25's and whatever 3.5's are opened, and >the trash. Can only put 53? files in root directory. I know, why would ya >want more?, well, how bout disks that just have icon, fonts, pics, stuff on em? >Don't need no subdirectories for them. Ok, maybe partitions and the alike >aren't too bad to work with, but I'd still prefer to have everything under >one / like on UNIX. > GS/OS's abstract file system is built to encompass virtually everything it will find in any file system. Most file systems will not handle all of the capabilities of GS/OS, and so most FSTs will be incomplete implementations of the abstract GS/OS file system. >Isn't GS/OS capable of handling something in the Gigabyte range, with long >file names (more than 64 char), etc, w/o having to resort to partitions and >stuff? That's why there should be a GSOS.FST. Or maybe a PRO2.FST that >will take care of handling the full power of GS/OS. > I personally would rather see Apple create an FST for an already-existing file system that handles *most* of the considerations, such as HFS. That not only opens up wider disk spaces to GS/OS users, it gives them the extra capability of reading a whole lot of already-existing disks. A completely new file system might be closer to "perfect", but nothing already existing would be compatible with it. I would prefer something like an HFS FST which tackles 90% of both problems, rather than 100% of one and 0% of the other. Remember, the FST concept is *designed* to let people read disks of various file systems. I want to do that; I don't want to invent a new file system and leave the others behind as "inferior". >kareth. ============================================================================== Matt Deatherage, Apple Computer, Inc. | "The opinions expressed in this tome Send PERSONAL mail ONLY (please) to: | should not be construed to imply that AppleLink PE: Matt DTS GEnie: AIIDTS | Apple Computer, Inc., or any of its CompuServe: 76703,3030 | subsidiaries, in whole or in part, Usenet: mattd@apple.com | have any opinion on any subject." UUCP: (other stuff)!ames!apple!mattd | "So there." =============================================================================
asd@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Kareth) (03/18/89)
In article <27489@apple.Apple.COM> mattd@Apple.COM (Matt Deatherage) writes: >I personally would rather see Apple create an FST for an already-existing >file system that handles *most* of the considerations, such as HFS. That >not only opens up wider disk spaces to GS/OS users, it gives them the extra >capability of reading a whole lot of already-existing disks. A completely >new file system might be closer to "perfect", but nothing already existing >would be compatible with it. I would prefer something like an HFS FST which >tackles 90% of both problems, rather than 100% of one and 0% of the other. >Remember, the FST concept is *designed* to let people read disks of various >file systems. I want to do that; I don't want to invent a new file system >and leave the others behind as "inferior". Okay this sounds good. Hadn't thought about using the HFS design. One comment. When I originally asked about FST, I was just wondering about wether an {GSOS,HFS,etc}.FST would work with Apple's SCSI card. Or rather would the SCSI card work with the FST. I didn't ONCE ever say drop the old "inferior" Prodos FST or whatever. I don't care how Apple creates a new FST, wether it's HFS (which sounds very good to me) or some extension of Prodos. I do think Apple needs to come out with one to take care of limitations in the old Prodos FST. But I never meant, said, or think it should be junked once they do (if they do). Personally, I'd like to see {MSDOS,Mac,UNIX,etc}.FSTs. Be great having a GS/OS that could handle whatever you give it. The possibilities are incredible. kareth.