Re: Disassembling an FST...

[Randy Shackelford <shack@onyx.southwind.net>]

Supertimer <supertimer@aol.com> wrote:

:>It has been well documented here on csa2 in the past that the reason
:>there is no FST specs/docs is that the interface between the FSTs and
:>GS/OS was always modified whenever there was a new FST introduced.

: Or so Nathan always claimed.  ;-)

Actually other people claimed it and Nathan responded with his usual Apple
hating spew. Did I mention how happy I am that he vanished?

:>Also, there were some non-standard hooks into GS/OS. The bottom line
:>was that things weren't as pretty and modular as the GS/OS reference
:>would have you believe.

: Theoretically.  However, the HFS FST actually does work if you
: put install it on System 5.0.4.  Apple made some very scary
: warnings about doing it, but I have done so in emergency
: situations without harm.

Well that's a crap shoot at best, and there are no guarantees that it'll work
in any other case.

:>At one time years ago, there was talk of disassembling one of the 
:>more stable FSTs (i.e., ProDOS) to see how things were done and also
:>use it to write a new "ProDOS+" type of FST which would add some
:>reasonable (do-able) features.
:>
:>But, like so many things with the Apple II in the last 5 years
:>nothing ever came of this. Too bad...would have been nice.

: Breaking the 32MB limit for the ProDOS FST would be
: cool and would it not be possible?  MS-DOS had such
: a limit (under the FAT file system) and they broke it after
: DOS 4, I think.

If ProDOS 8 can't use the file system, then there's no need to make it look
like ProDOS. It would break all the disk repair apps out there, making it
necessary to redo 'em. That would put this new file system in the same
boat as HFS, which is already implemented. So making it usable would most
definitely be the path of least resistance.
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