Re: USCD Pascal on a CFFA drive

[Wulf <apple2@die-kempers.de>]

Hereafter an update on my activities and for my (hopefully also for
others) future reference.

Thanks to the help I got from the members of this newsgroup I got
pointed in the right directions.
Special thanks to Steve Nelson who send me his driver software.

Here are some documents I found useful. I will not copy links as I
expect these will be broken over time but as long as you know the
names you always can google for it.

Apple-Pascal-Operating-System-Reference-Manual      (Explains the
basics and the use of the program LIBARY)

Apple Pascal Technical Note # 16 (TN.PASC.016)       (That's the
grail, Everything can be derived from it)

Apple Pascal Technical Note # 12 (TN.PASC.012)        (Explains the
disk formatter routine)

Attach-Bios Document , Barry Haynes                         ( Can be
found on Call-Apple Pascal Disk #6
 
or in p-Source,Randall Hyde)
p-source , Randall Hyde
(Very good reference book and does include Barry Haynes Attach Bios
Document)


Program DiskMount and the Sub-Volume Manager
by Steve
Nelson                                                         (Very
nice implementation of the Idea of having multiple volumes
 
I had just to tweak it a little for my needs)


I finally ended up with a simple two partition scheme as I have found
out that having a "static" pascal System volume and a large pascal
work directory is plenty enough for my needs.
My system partition is 1600 blocks (plenty of room left for big
system.wrk.text/code files
and my work/development partition is 32000 blocks. (way too much room
to fill)

Having 39 X 1600 block volumes is doable but just plain overkill and I
will never use it.
Given the fact that CF cards are so inexpensive these days and you can
get the small sizes just by asking you friends it is not too much
waste to let 90% of your CF card sitting unused.

Anyhow it was a fun little exercise and again many thanks for all your
help.

By the way, I had also some collateral damage and hardware
improvements done on the way.

Collateral: By constantly fiddling with the CF card (pull in pull out,
relocating the CFFA between slot 7 and 5)
I did something I haven't done in a long,long time (Maybe 15-20 years?
can't remember anymore)
I accidentally unplugged the Disk II and pushed it back with the
connector offset. BAM! My 74ls125 on the logic board got fried.
I guess a couple of you are familiar with this :-)


Improvements: I installed a CF to IDE board to the CFFA card and cut a
slot in my Apple IIe case. Now I have a cool looking CF card slot
(Reminds me on the old star trek "Memory Bank" card slots) and a
convenient way to swap CF cards.(No more fiddling inside the case)
I also relocated the CFFA LED lamp so I can see when the CF card is
active.