Re: M$ Joliet & GS (WAS: Multiple Apple HS SCSI questions)

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

David Chiu <none@nowhere.org> wrote:

> On a somewhat related note, are there any Micro$oft Joilet FS extension
> available for the GS?

As has been mentioned before, Apple never published the specifications
on how to write an FST (and they kept changing the rules with each
system release), so the only FSTs that have ever been produced are those
supplied by Apple with the system software, namely:

- ProDOS
- HFS
- MS-DOS FAT (read only, rather limited implementation)
- Apple II Pascal (read only)
- Apple II DOS 3.3 (read only)
- High Sierra and ISO-9660 (read only, level 1 only)
- AppleShare

(I think that's the lot.)

Having said that, an FST isn't the only way of supporting a foreign file
system - it is just the nicest way, as any GS/OS application will then
be able to at least read files from the foreign file system.

An application or desk accessory can implement its own support for a
foreign file system, which means that you have to use that application
or desk accessory to access the foreign disks.

Examples of this include a variety of ProDOS-8 utility programs: Copy
II+, Apple II System Utilities, Chameleon, CONVERT, A2FX, HFSLink, the
MFS utility whose name I've forgotten again (MacTransGS?).  The PC
Transporter's "Transfer" utility is similar.  Under GS/OS, the only
example I can think of is Peter Watson's MS-DOS tools, which provide
more extensive support than the MS-DOS FST.

> Given the large number of people burning CDs on the
> PEECEEs, one would think it would come in handy...

A Joliet CD is supposed to include a normal ISO-9660 level 1 directory,
which would be recognised by the IIgs's HS.FST (High Sierra and
ISO-9660).  Not all do this - I've seen one from Microsoft which had a
single "You need Windows 95" text file when accessed from an ISO-only
machine.

Two related issues occur to me:

- The CD-ROM drives used on most Apple IIs are old enough that they
won't support multisession CDs.  I don't know whether HS.FST supports
the ISO-9660 XA file system, which is required for a multi-session CD.

- If you write a CD on a PC using DirectCD, it may end up using the
UDF-Bridge file system, which is not directly compatible with ISO-9660.
A "closed" DirectCD CD-R should include an ISO-9660 directory, but it
will be ISO level 3, which is unlikely to work on the IIgs.  A DirectCD
CD-RW normally remains in UDF, which won't be supported.  (Old drives
can't read CD-RW media anyway, so this is even less likely to work.)