Re: Apple Pascal off a HD?

[dempson@atlantis.actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

In article <41v6le$9mh@post.its.mcw.edu>,
Ron Kneusel  <rkneusel@post.its.mcw.edu> wrote:
> 
> I have version 1.3 of Apple Pascal and can get it to run off the 
> RAM card, but could it run off a hard drive?

Yes, but only if you give it the whole hard drive partition.  The SCSI
card must be in slot 4, 5 or 6.  You can even boot off it if it is the
first partition.

I'm not sure how well it will work if Pascal doesn't have the first
partition on the drive.

Pascal's file system is not well suited to large volumes, because all
files are stored linearly and in a single directory, with a rather
small limit on the number of files.

If you have a ProFile, Apple used to have a produce called the "Pascal
ProFile Manager", which allowed a Pascal area to be reserved on a
ProDOS-formatted ProFile.  This is a variable-sized area at the end of
the drive.  One or more logical Pascal volumes could then be created
within the Pascal area, of arbitrary size.

Pascal's file system limitations would only apply within the logical
volumes.  You could move the logical volumes around in the same manner
as Pascal files - crunching the volumes, creating and deleting them,
etc., effectively giving you a two-level Pascal-style directory.

It isn't possible to boot Pascal from this type of volume - you have
to boot from floppy.

Not ideal, but better than nothing.

The catch: Pascal ProFile Manager doesn't work on a SCSI hard drive,
only with a ProFile.
-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand