Re: ProDOS misc. questions

[shack@deimos.frii.com (Randy Shackelford)]

In article <31FDD36C.B59@cardshow.com>,
Michael Guitton  <webmaster@cardshow.com> wrote:
>o Why the root directory of a ProDOS volume is limited to 51 files?

The main reason is that the EOF of the volume directory isn't stored on disk
anywhere, it's just assumed to be $800, or four blocks. Varying the number
of blocks can work, but not every app out there will support it. I experimented
with making volumes with bigger volume directories using a block editor once,
with fairly inconsistent results trying them with various apps.
Trivia: the program disk on early Appleworks versions has less than a four
block directory, with bit map relocated to match. I guess they did it to 
squeeze some files on for which space was a little short on a normal disk.

>o Would it be possible to overcome the 32MB partition size limit of =
>
>ProDOS? The File Manager on the Macintosh can only handle volumes of =
>
>32MB (sectors size =3D 512 bytes) but some trick -- logical blocks to name =
>
>it -- allows to handle sectors of larger size and thus the maximum =
>
>partition size is 4GB under System 7.5.x (2GB under 7.1.x).

Nope, all device drivers assume 512 byte blocks, so ProDOS 8 couldn't use such
volumes. Just use HFS instead.
-- 
Randy Shackelford                                 I was internet
shack@frii.com                                    when internet wasn't cool