Re: Mac OS 8 inherits GS/OS features

[nathan@cco.caltech.edu (Nathan Mates)]

In article <Pine.SOL.3.91.960807150337.29837A-100000@moose>,
Paul Schultz  <pschultz@med.wayne.edu> wrote:
>On Wed, 7 Aug 1996, Michael Guitton wrote:
>> Speaking of FST and since there won't be any new release of GS/OS, Apple
>> should change its mind and make available the specification. This would
>> allow "third party" developers to build a fully functional MS/DOS FST, for
>> instance.

>This may not be as easy as it sounds. I seem to remember when this request
>was made when System 6.0.1 came out. Apparently, the interface between
>GS/OS and the FST isn't as "clean" as it should be. For instance, I recall
>that GS/OS had to be "worked on" so that the new MS-DOS FST would work.

   So spend the little bit of time to make a clean interface, and
publish the dox. "It wasn't done right, so we're not telling you" is a
BIG excuse. The amount of time spent doing something moderately
useless (rBundles, rBundles, and more rBundles) would have been far
better in the long term spent on doing FSTs right.

   About the only thing that the MS-DOG FST needed for some semblance
of running right was the ability to read forked files that had been
written on to such a disk before (the RESOURCE.FRK directory that's
deposited there after a Mac writes to it). If that was a huge problem
or hack to the code, then the FST interface is really atrocious.

>So, the bottom line may be that the low level interface between GS/OS and
>FSTs may be compsed of a good deal of "glue" code which would make adding
>a significantly different FST (like UNIX-style) a real chore.

   Unix has an unforked filesystem. So hack the MS-DOG one to write to
".resource/" instead of RESOURCE.FRK\. Hell, even a sector editor
could do that change.

>Disclaimer: a lot of this is from memory....so please correct and/or
>modify if some of it misses the mark.

   It's what's been said before, and I'm not critiquing your repeating
it here. It's the overly protectionistic attitude from Apple that's
what's suspicious.

Nathan Mates
-- 
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~nathan/      <*>
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