FAT12/16 for SmartPort/disk ][?

[lyricalnanoha <lyricalnanoha@usotsuki.hoshinet.org>]

This is the extension of a conversation I had with a friend, whom I 
convinced that it would be a nice idea to design a "Super ][", and it 
comes into the stuff he's doing generally in a more retro direction.

It comes from the fact that we both wanted to use SD for removable storage 
and with a 32 MB partition limit, we'd be forced to have a ton of 
partitions or waste most of the card if we used ProDOS... so he proposed 
using FAT16.

This lead me to a bit of a dilemma since obviously this will require 
writing a new OS, and I'm not really up to the task (and I'm the 6502 guru 
of the two of us; he works mostly with ARM and Atmega).  So I'm not really 
sure how I'd pull this off.

The idea of what I am trying to do is this: I want to create a simple OS 
using the MS-DOS filesystems (it can use 65C02 opcodes, as I don't intend 
to use it on less than an Enhanced //e - it may have to use 65C02 opcodes 
right from the top, the BRA opcode to jump over the disk parameter block!) 
that supports one-load binary programs and (possibly with a wedge, as 
ProDOS does it, but using the DOS 3.3 mechanisms instead of silent trace) 
BASIC programs which may load other BASIC programs.

The obvious method to use is SmartPort which is known to work in the 
emulators I've already gotten running as well as with ApplePC, the emu I 
do most of my testing in.  I'd prolly use disk ][ as an alternative as 
well.  The OS would, apart from filesystem code, probably be a little 
simpler than ProDOS; that's fine as I need all the RAM I can get! (LOL)

This is just a bit out of my league, though. :<

-uso.