Re: DOS 3.3 FST question

[nathan@visi.com (Nathan Mates)]

In article <4ufk5q$u6$1@montespan.pasteur.fr>,
Miguel van Bemmelen  <miguelx@pasteur.fr> wrote:
>I'd really be grateful if somebody could give me some info
>about management of
>DOS 3.3 under System 601.

   Tip: your software is automatically reformatting your lines to
about 62 columns each, while your lines were originally about 75-85
characters long. That produces this alternation of long and short
lines as above. It's bese best if all lines are near 70 characters
long.

>I have been trying lately to work with some DOS 3.3-formatted disks on
>my //GS running on System 6.0.1. I tried unsuccesfully to format 5.25
>inch disks in DOS 3.3 from the Finder. I read somewhere in this
>newsgroup that the DOS3.3 FST is a read-only extension. I supose that
>this is the reason for the failure. Is this right?

   If you selected 'Format Disk' with the 5.25" disk selected, it
should have given you the option of formatting it as ProDOS and
maybe HFS. Nothing for Dos 3.3. Yes, the Dos 3.3 FST is read-only,
so it doesn't let you write to a disk.

>Interesting enough, Copy II+ is not able either to format 5.25 disks
>in DOS3.3 when started up from the Finder. It gives an error TRACK $00
>and it exits.

   Very odd. Copy II+ should be hitting the hardware directly
for formatting, so it shouldn't care. 

>1) Is there any special reason for the DOS 3.3 FST to allow only
>reading but not writing?

   A) It wasn't programmed in. 

   B) Apple intended the extra FSTs to be used only for migrating
stuff off to the GS and Macs.

   (C) [Somewhat explains the above for the DOS 3.3 FSTs, but not the
Pascal and MS-DOG FST.] The Finder is very picky about disk volume
names for coying and identification purposes. (If you try and insert
another disk with the same name as a disk currently on the desktop, it
forces you to eject or rename it.)

   DOS 3.3 disks have no name. They have a volume number, but 99.9% of
those numbers are the same. The DOS 3.3 FST generates a volume 'name'
by some mathematical formula on the bits of filenames and/or volume
bitmaps. Problem is, if you were to write to the disk, the calculated
volume name would change, which would make the Finder real unhappy.

   About the only solution to this is to use some unused area of the
Dos 3.3 disk to store a volume name or number. Iffy at best-- except
for maybe some bytes in Track 17/Sector 0, there's no space to write
in a byte or few. [And then what about write protected Dos 3.3 Disks?]
You could also kludge it with a special filename for the volume "GS/OS
Filename: ':Kludge001'", but that runs into write protected disks and
disks that are out of space for filenames.

>2) What is responsible for the interference with Copy II+
>formatting?

   No clue. Copy ][+ and GS/OS do NOT get along on a lot of things
anyways (doing a directory sort is one way to corrupt your disk in a
hurry; it also mangles files with resources), so I'd be content to let
Copy ][+ die of neglect. [The bitcopy functions and sector editor are
decent, but file/volume utilities bite.]

Nathan Mates

--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.visi.com/~nathan/      <*>
# What are the facts? Again and again and again-- what are the _facts_?
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# think-- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places?  -R.A. Heinlein