Re: Apple model history?

[pausch@saafNOSPAM.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <1e8zu2x.1wlb7k31cpyomuN%dempson@actrix.gen.nz>,
David Empson <dempson@actrix.gen.nz> wrote:
 
> Paul Guertin <pg@sff.net> wrote:
> 
>> One thing about ProDOS, or rather Basic.system -- how come there is
>> no equivalent of the "cd .." command, to go up one level in the
>> directory hierarchy? I've always found that odd.
> 
> Me too.  It isn't too hard to do in a program (search backwards for a
> slash), but seems like a rather glaring oversight.
 
Perhaps the oversight is within the file system?  Does a ProDOS
subdirectory contain a directory named ".." ????  An MS-DOS/Windows
directory does, and a UNIX directory does.  The ".." subdirectory
entry is linked to the parent directory, and that's why "cd .."  does
what it does.
 
Perhaps you can do some "surgery" on a ProDOS disk, creating a
subdirectory entry named ".." and linked to the parent directory?
If you do, perhaps "cd .." then will work in ProDOS too?
 
>> Almost as odd as DOS 3.3 having a two-letter command for a seldom-used
>> function (FP) but a seven-letter CATALOG command.
> 
> How many times did others here type 'CATAKIG' by accident?
 
..or some other variety, e.g.  VSTSLOG .... :-)
 
>>> It isn't like there was something special about the Apple III hardware
>>> that made designing the operating system a task that was specific to
>>> only that machine.
>> 
>> Agreed, but before the III, did anyone at Apple see the need to write
>> a sophisticated, HD-compatible operating system for the II, and act
>> on it? Hm... I suppose the Apple Pascal OS might have been it.
> 
> Hardly.  The Pascal file system rapidly becomes unusable as you increase
> the disk size, because it requires files to be contiguous, is limited to
> 70 or so files, and doesn't support subdirectories.
 
Now I understand why I liked the CP/M operating so much back in those
Apple II days: adding support for 640K floppies was quite
straightforward in CP/M but impossible in Apple DOS 3.3 -- in the
latter case, I had to implement each 640K floppy as two logical DOS
3.3. drives 320K each...
 
> They had to implement a horrible hack involving creating lots of small
> volumes to get Pascal working usefully with the 5 MB ProFile drive.
 
Just like they did to get Apple DOS running on the 5 MB Profile....
 
> Apple got it right with Apple /// Pascal, since it ran under SOS, with
> corresponding improvements to all the above details.
 
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter,  Swedish Amateur Astronomer's Society (SAAF)
Grev Turegatan 40,  S-114 38 Stockholm,  SWEDEN
e-mail:  pausch at saaf dot se   or    paul.schlyter at ausys dot se
WWW:     http://hotel04.ausys.se/pausch    http://welcome.to/pausch