Re: Patched HS.FST or PRODOS.FST??

[CUTblakeney@home.com (Jeff Blakeney)]

On 20 May 1999 00:37:08 GMT, indizgize@aol.com.net.org (InDizgize)
wrote:

>I just came into posession of an Apple CD150 CDRom drive.  I've got it hooked
>up to my Apple Rev C. SCSI card and it seems to be working just fine.  The
>problem i'm having is that i can't seem to access any file or directory that
>has a space in it.   I recall some mention of a patched PRODOS.FST file for use
>in accessing the files on GEOS formatted disks..  Is there a patched HS.FST for
>use on CDs or does the HS.FST pass something along to the PRODOS.FST?   In any
>case i'm in need of either or both of these.   If anyone could point me in the
>right direction I'd appreciate it..

As no one else seems to have come up with the correct answer for you
yet, let me help.  :)

The problem you are running into is that the ISO standard states that
spaces and the other a number of other special characters are not
allowed in volume, folder or filenames.  Unfortunately, Microsoft
ignored the standard and allowed these characters and many people
followed suit.

The good news is that Apple followed the standard correctly but the
bad news is that leaves us in the cold when trying to use certain
people's volumes.

However, GS+ magazine did a couple of programs that allow us IIgs
users to circumvent this problem.

The first program was called CD-ROaM and was published in v5 n2
(Nov/Dec 1993).  This allowed you to see the contents of volumes that
had spaces and other illegal characters in the volume name so you
could copy files off of the HS/ISO volume to another volume so that
you could use them.  However, this program was limited in that you
still couldn't open folders or copy files that had illegal characters
in them.

The second program (a temporary init actually) was called Dr. Bazyar
and was published in v7 n1 (Sep/Oct 1995).  The idea for this program
came from Jawaid Bazyar which is how it got its name.  This program
simply patches the HS.FST once it gets loaded to change the lowest
valid character in a volume/file name from $30 (the number 0) to $20
(a space).  This means that ! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . and / are also
considered valid characters.

The nice thing about Dr. Bazyar is that it not only fixes CD-ROaM's
limitation of not being able to access file/folders with illegal
characters in them but it also makes the "bad" volumes act like a
perfectly legal volume.  Meaning that volumes you previously couldn't
get to show up on the Finder's desktop will now appear and files you
couldn't open or copy with any program will now be accessible.

Now for the bad news.  As these programs were published in GS+
magazine, they are copyrighted and are not available except on the
used market.  Someone bought the rights to EGO Systems stuff a while
back but they have not done anything with the stuff that I am aware
of.  I sure wish this stuff would become available again because I
only have a dozen issues of GS+ and they had some other good stuff
available as well.

By the way, if you want to have a patched ProDOS that can use more of
the ASCII set in filenames including spaces and allow you to start
filenames with a number you need to look for a program called QFIX.  I
believe it is still included with the archive for 2QWK! if you are
having problems finding it.  Brian Hammack should be able to point you
to it at any rate.  :)

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