Re: DOS 1 & 2

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <rNKdnSo0wpiBRbbbnZ2dnUVZ_ompnZ2d@comcast.com>,
Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:

> Bryan Parkoff wrote:
>>     Steve Woz and his contractor developed DOS 1 and DOS 2 for Apple II. 
>> DOS 1 and DOS 2 were used for beta testing, but they were never released to 
>> the public until DOS 3.1 became available.  Correct?  Do you have idea what 
>> DOS 1 and DOS 2 look like unfinished RWTS routines?
> 
> AFAIK, DOS 3.1 was the first publicly available version.
> 
> Since Woz wrote RWTS in the process of developing the Disk ][ drive and
> controller, it's safe to say that RWTS preceded any DOS version.
> 
> The very first RWTS may have been 4+4 coding, but Woz quickly progressed
> to 5+3, then later to 6+2.  The final iteration was the ProDOS-style
> RWTS that decodes nibbles to data on the fly.

Actually, already Apple Pascal did that.  And it dind't just decode
nibbles on the fly while reading, it also encoded nibbles on the
fly while writing.  The latter I believe is more difficult to
implmenent, due to the code writing to disk being so time critical.


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