Re: Question on ProDOS SmartPort drive remapping

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

David Wilson <mcs6502@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Dec 6, 5:28 pm, demp...@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) wrote:
> > Watch out for the 7 volume limit on the original Apple SCSI card. You
> > might run into problems with the 110 volume limit on the High-Speed card
> > if you have a 1 GBish drive and 800 KB partitions.
> 
> I worked out the ideal platform to test my code on. Kegs running on
> Linux with 10+ drives in slot 7, 2 drives in slot 6 and 2 drives in
> slot 5. It fills out the drive table with $FD08 vectors quite nicely.
> 
> Should the drive re-mapper program be:
> 
> 1) A ProDOS system program requiring you to exit what you are doing
> before running it.
> 2) A Binary program you can run from BASIC.SYSTEM
> 3) An Applesoft program with some 6502 code to read the Language card.

It would be kind of nice as a IIgs CDA, for those running on a IIgs, but
that would be risky as you could swap out drives while they had files
open.

Otherwise it needs to be readily accessible from the user's normal
operating environment. That suggests it should at least be executable
from BASIC.SYSTEM without having to quit (i.e. a BIN), but it should
also be easy to get to from the program selector (i.e. a SYS).

Does anyone use other shells commonly in ProDOS-8?

If you were wanting to make use of it while running a ProDOS-8
application launched from GS/OS, it would be a bit tricky, because you
don't have access to a ProDOS-8 program selector.

My Quitter.System is a possible solution to that problem, since it has
the ability to be launched from GS/OS, set up my enhanced Birds Better
Bye, then let you work in ProDOS-8 for a while, switching between
applications. You can get back to GS/OS (without restarting) by
launching Quitter.System again and pressing the Delete key.

(In theory, I could add a SmartPort drive remapping scheme into an
updated version of Quitter.System, assuming I was willing to dust off my
IIgs and my Apple II programming skills.)

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz