Re: apple II gs to ms-dos

[cheer@i.hate.spam (Christopher D. Heer)]

In article <01bc0fe0$eb44b210$3694aec7@camelot>, russg@travsoft.com says...

>Christopher D. Heer <cheer@i.hate.spam> wrote in article
><5cr15v$cp8@inet-nntp-gw-1.us.oracle.com>...

>> In article <32E0FD07.6A65@monmouth.com>, dwebster@monmouth.com says...
>> >I used to just pop MS-DOS disks into my GS HD drives, but the read only
>> >DOS FST is not compatable with WIN 95 disks.  Even disks that were
>> >formatted under DOS 6.22 or earlier, once read by a WIN 95 machine are
>> >no longer readable by the GS.  Another interesting note, Mac PC exchange
>> >(the sys 7.5xx version) also has a problem with WIN 95 disks.  It can
>> >read the files, but the disk lable becomes a fragment of the name of the
>> >most recently written file.  

><snip>
 
>> I can't begin to imagine why this would be.  It's not as if the disk
>> format changed (it didn't).  Could they be barfing because the creator ID 
>> in the boot record is unrecognised?
 
>> Doesn't make sense.  Anyone know what's up with this?

>Yup - Win95 uses what is now called a VFAT.  To accomidate 255 character
>filenames, it uses two names for every file:  the short atandard 8.3 name,
>and the new up to 255 char name.  It stores these names as entries in the
>directory, marked as hidden system.

But that's not really a change in the format, per se.  They store some extra 
files, yeah, and Win95 knows what to do with them, but it's backwards 
compatible.  I mean, I can pop them into an older machine running DOS without 
a hitch.  (That was, in fact, the idea.)  So why should the DOS FST care?  
Physically (and, from a basic FAT standpoint, structurally) they're the same.
-- 
      Christopher D. Heer / cheer@us.oracle.com / cheer@eskimo.com
     My opinions are my own and do not reflect those of Oracle Corp.
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