Re: Did anybody ever use a "Pascal Area" on a ProFile hard disk?

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

ground.ecn AppleII Librarian <apple2pd@garp3.icaen.uiowa.edu> wrote:

> I used to use/program a lot of stuff in UCSD Apple Pascal.  I quickly
> spoiled myself with addons.  First, my first "Pascal" Apple II+ had both
> 2-5.25 drives and 2-8" floppies (SVA Disk2+2 controller, Lobo dual 8"
> drive enclosure with 2 Shugart 801R drives.)  Serial controller in slot 3
> connected to ADM31 terminal for 80 column support - later replaced by ALS
> 80 column display card.  Pretty efficient as all system files
> (editor,compiler,linker, assembler etc. online at all times.  A 288K
> Ramdisk (Flashcard) with editor, compiler , etc. loaded made for a even
> faster development system.
> 
> Of course, eventually came a IIe and a FCP Sider harddisk (20Meg?)
> partitioned into Dos3.3, ProDOS, and Pascal op. sys.

It helped if you had a hard drive controller which supported multiple
operating systems in this manner.  It wouldn't have been easy to support
a dual-bootable Pascal and ProDOS system on an Apple SCSI card, for
example.  (Pascal would require a fair amount of patching to boot from
"drive 2", but it would be easier for ProDOS.)

> So much HD space - how to use?!  Pascal file types include a "volume
> image".  By system 1.2 and 1.3 it was documented how to add "user"
> drivers.  So one of my most useful development tools was my "Volume
> Manager".  Basically, I mapped "volume image" files to the user unit #'s
> 13-20.

An excellent idea, and pretty similar to how Apple's "Pascal ProFILE
Manager" worked, though it dealt with them at a lower level (effectively
a low-level "logical volume" file system within the Pascal Area on the
ProDOS-formatted ProFILE).

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz