Friesen@PCO-MULTICS.HBI.HONEYWELL.COM (11/04/88)
Someone recently mentioned a 300MB hard disk was available for the ST, but I was told that an ST could only access 195MB on a hard disk. Can anyone comment? Aric Friesen Addresses: Genie: A.FRIESEN ARPA: Friesen%PCO@BCO-MULTICS.ARPA
cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (11/05/88)
In article Friesen%PCO@BCO-MULTICS.HBI.HONEYWELL.COM writes: >Someone recently mentioned a 300MB hard disk was available for the ST, >but I was told that an ST could only access 195MB on a hard disk. > >Can anyone comment? Well not really. The original 68K GEM inherited the 32Mb hard disk partition limit from MS-DOS, there was also a sixteen partition limit once but I believe that it is now 26 (A-Z). So leaving A,B,C for the floppies and the cartridge a simple 32 * 23 calculation yields 736Mb, if it is 16 then you would only get 416Mb. Both numbers being larger than the 195 you mention. --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
dlm@druhi.ATT.COM (Dan Moore) (11/08/88)
in article <76253@sun.uucp>, cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) says: > In article Friesen%PCO@BCO-MULTICS.HBI.HONEYWELL.COM writes: >>Someone recently mentioned a 300MB hard disk was available for the ST, >>but I was told that an ST could only access 195MB on a hard disk. > > Well not really. The original 68K GEM inherited the 32Mb hard disk partition > limit from MS-DOS, there was also a sixteen partition limit once but I > believe that it is now 26 (A-Z). So leaving A,B,C for the floppies and > the cartridge a simple 32 * 23 calculation yields 736Mb, if it is 16 > then you would only get 416Mb. Both numbers being larger than the 195 > you mention. GemDos is still limited to 16 Meg partitions. Several of the hard disk systems do allow you to create partitions larger than 16 Meg as long as the partition is *NOT* used for GemDos (ie. Spectre, Minix, OS9, etc.). Atari has not said anything about increasing the 16 Meg limit in the newer TOS releases. GemDos is also limited to 16 drives, A to P. (NOTE: The original doc said there was a 32 drive limit.) Drives A and B are used for floppies, leaving 14 drives for hard disk partitions. Atari's hard disk software only supports 4 partitions per physical drive giving a 48 Meg limit. Supra, ICD and BMS all allow up to 14 partitions per drive, giving a 224 Meg limit. Dan Moore AT&T Bell Labs Denver dlm@druhi.ATT.COM
grieggs@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (John T. Grieggs) (11/10/88)
In article <881104030315.414923@PCO-MULTICS.HBI.HONEYWELL.COM> Friesen%PCO@BCO-MULTICS.HBI.HONEYWELL.COM writes: >Someone recently mentioned a 300MB hard disk was available for the ST, >but I was told that an ST could only access 195MB on a hard disk. 16 Mb per partition * 12 partitions = 192 Mb If anyone knows a not-too-illegal way around this limit, I would like to hear about it. I know of no way to effectively use a 300 Mb unit on an ST at this time. _john -- John T. Grieggs (Telos @ Jet Propulsion Laboratory) 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, Ca. 91109 M/S 301-260A (818) 354-0465 Uucp: {cit-vax,elroy,chas2}!jpl-devvax!grieggs Arpa: ...jpl-devvax!grieggs@cit-vax.ARPA
cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (11/10/88)
In article <3713@druhi.ATT.COM> dlm@druhi.ATT.COM (Dan Moore) writes:
[All about the partition limits under GEM, which were much smaller than
mine, boy am I embarassed. Seems that Atari's version of TOS predates
my 68K-GEM data from DRI.]
So I apologize for spewing out such massive misinformation.
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.brenes@skywest.UUCP (Erasmo Brenes) (11/10/88)
In article <3713@druhi.ATT.COM> dlm@druhi.ATT.COM (Dan Moore) writes: >original doc said there was a 32 drive limit.) Drives A and B >are used for floppies, leaving 14 drives for hard disk partitions. >Atari's hard disk software only supports 4 partitions per physical >drive giving a 48 Meg limit. Supra, ICD and BMS all allow up to 14 ^^^^ Actually, it is 64MB (ie. 4 partitions x 16MB each = 64MB). I have such system. Erasmo.
toivanen@tukki.jyu.fi (Jari Toivanen) (11/11/88)
In article <3713@druhi.ATT.COM> dlm@druhi.ATT.COM (Dan Moore) writes: > GemDos is still limited to 16 Meg partitions. > >Atari's hard disk software only supports 4 partitions per physical >drive giving a 48 Meg limit. I think in that arcticle is a little calculation error. Should it be 4 partitions each 16 Meg per physical drive giving a 64 Meg limit. Jari Toivanen Segments are for worms ;-) Math student at Internet: toivanen@tukki.jyu.fi University of Jyvaskyla, Finland Bitnet: toivanen_jar@finjyu.bitnet
danscott@atari.UUCP (Dan Scott) (11/11/88)
in article <575@skywest.UUCP>, brenes@skywest.UUCP (Erasmo Brenes) says: > > In article <3713@druhi.ATT.COM> dlm@druhi.ATT.COM (Dan Moore) writes: >>original doc said there was a 32 drive limit.) Drives A and B >>are used for floppies, leaving 14 drives for hard disk partitions. >>Atari's hard disk software only supports 4 partitions per physical >>drive giving a 48 Meg limit. Supra, ICD and BMS all allow up to 14 > ^^^^ > Actually, it is 64MB (ie. 4 partitions x 16MB each = 64MB). I have such > system. True, Atari system software will only allow for four partitions, but other software (Supra, ICD, Berkeley Microsystems) will allow for up to 12 different drives icons. Dan
hyc@math.lsa.umich.edu (Howard Chu) (11/11/88)
In article <3482@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> grieggs@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (John T. Grieggs) writes: >In article <881104030315.414923@PCO-MULTICS.HBI.HONEYWELL.COM> Friesen%PCO@BCO-MULTICS.HBI.HONEYWELL.COM writes: >>Someone recently mentioned a 300MB hard disk was available for the ST, >>but I was told that an ST could only access 195MB on a hard disk. > >16 Mb per partition * 12 partitions = 192 Mb > >If anyone knows a not-too-illegal way around this limit, I would like >to hear about it. I know of no way to effectively use a 300 Mb unit >on an ST at this time. Depends on your meaning when you say "effective use." I use Minix on my ST. Minix has no partition size limits. As such, having 300MB of disk available to me would be effective for me. If you restrict yourself to TOS, you have a problem... If you're willing to sacrifice some storage efficiency, you might consider using larger disk block sizes. You only have 21 bits for addressing disk blocks, but if you double the size of a block from 512 bytes to 1K, you've just doubled your maximum from 192M to 384M. -- / /_ , ,_. Howard Chu / /(_/(__ University of Michigan / Computing Center College of LS&A ' Unix Project Information Systems
grieggs@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (John T. Grieggs) (11/12/88)
In article <3713@druhi.ATT.COM> dlm@druhi.ATT.COM (Dan Moore) writes: > GemDos is still limited to 16 Meg partitions. Several of the hard disk systems do allow you to create partitions larger than 16 Meg as long as the partition is *NOT* used for GemDos (ie. Spectre, Minix, OS9, etc.). Atari has not said anything about increasing the >16 Meg limit in the newer TOS releases. The 16 Meg limit is because of a TOS bug. Ye olde 16 bit INT truncation problem strikes again... Rumor has it that this bug will be fixed in the new TOS, thus allowing for larger partitions. > GemDos is also limited to 16 drives, A to P. (NOTE: The original doc said there was a 32 drive limit.) Drives A and B are used for floppies, leaving 14 drives for hard disk partitions. Atari's hard disk software only supports 4 partitions per physical drive giving a 48 Meg limit. Supra, ICD and BMS all allow up to 14 >partitions per drive, giving a 224 Meg limit. Um, almost right. Only 12 are supported within a single physical unit, due to a space limitation in sector 0. Only 4 are in legal space, the other 8 are stuck in where nothing should be, but it doesn't seem to hurt anything... Thus, a single physical drive can contain up to 192 Mb of useful space, and an additional 2 partitions are possible elsewhere at 16 Mb each. Total for system is 224, for one unit is 192. _john (Astra, for this post) -- John T. Grieggs (Telos @ Jet Propulsion Laboratory) 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, Ca. 91109 M/S 301-260A (818) 354-0465 Uucp: {cit-vax,elroy,chas2}!jpl-devvax!grieggs Arpa: ...jpl-devvax!grieggs@cit-vax.ARPA
ralph@laas.laas.fr (Ralph P. Sobek) (11/15/88)
In article <76253@sun.uucp>, cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) writes: > The original 68K GEM inherited the 32Mb hard disk partition > limit from MS-DOS, there was also a sixteen partition limit once but I > believe that it is now 26 (A-Z). The question that this bring to mind is what is the limit on the number of GEM desktop icons for partitions/drives? Can one have 26 drive/partition icons up on the screen at the same time?
dclemans.falcon@mntgfx.mentor.com (Dave Clemans) (11/15/88)
From article <3482@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>, by grieggs@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (John T. Grieggs): > 16 Mb per partition * 12 partitions = 192 Mb > > If anyone knows a not-too-illegal way around this limit, I would like > to hear about it. I know of no way to effectively use a 300 Mb unit > on an ST at this time. > There has been some pressure from developers on Compuserve to get Atari to "fix" the bug that limits partitions to 16 megabytes, instead of the 32 megabytes that the present FAT could presently address. They've been resisting it, based on the scenario: "naive" person A with a "fixed" OS builds a hard disk with big partitions and then fills that partion so that more than 16 megabytes is used. Then that hard disk is taken to a machine that doesn't have a "fixed" OS and tries to use it; that machine proceeds to scramble the disk (or other similar situations). One suggestion (made by somebody at Atari Canada?) was a different partition type, so that "old" machines would ignore big hard disk partitions. (And of course if the GEM filesystem was made compatible to MSDOS/PCDOS 4.0, then more than 32 megabytes could be addressed...). Currently there is no way to address more than 192 megabytes as a GEM filesystem. However you can use any amount of space as a raw disk (supposedly you just give the appropriate flags to the Rwabs call...) dgc
danscott@atari.UUCP (Dan Scott) (11/16/88)
in article <119@laas.laas.fr>, ralph@laas.laas.fr (Ralph P. Sobek) says: > > The question that this bring to mind is what is the limit on the > number of GEM desktop icons for partitions/drives? Can one have 26 > drive/partition icons up on the screen at the same time? You can have drive icons from A-P....16 in all.... Dan