Re: GS/OS and ProDOS-8 Question...

[CUTblakeney@home.com (Jeff Blakeney)]

On Tue, 24 Aug 1999 21:05:28 -0400, "Terence J. Boldt"
<apple2@cgocable.net> wrote:

>Do I need any other toolbox tools or anything else to make a useful boot
>drive?

Well, on the weekend I could sit down and figure out what all I'd put
on a 1 MB ROM disk to boot GS/OS and let you know what I come up with.

There is one or more add-on programs that allow you to move certain
things off of the boot volume and onto other disks.  This means that
you could have desk accessories and fonts on another disk or two so
that you can add/remove or enable/disable them as desired.

You could also patch certain other parts of the system to look for
stuff on other disks as well.

However, I'm still not sure how useful a 1 MB boot disk would be for
GS/OS.  My System folder on my boot disk is about 13 MB at present.
The standard folders in my System folder are this size:

CDEVs        = 336 KB
Desk.Accs    = 1.8 MB
Drivers      = 326 KB
FinderExtras = 150 KB
Fonts        = 6.4 MB
FSTs         = 123 KB
Preferences  =  21 KB
Sounds       = 984 KB
System.Setup = 555 KB
Tools        = 405 KB

As you can see I have a lot of fonts and desk accessories (some of
which are inactive right now) and a fair amount of other stuff
installed.  These folders could be pared down a lot but that still
leaves a lot more than 1 MB.

There is also a problem with using certain programs or add-ons as they
want to store their preferences in the */System/Preferences folder
which would be read only on a ROM disk.  My own system has pref files
for TransProg III, Kangaroo, ShadowWrite/Hermes, ShortExtras,
GraphicWriter III (although I figure this should be in the program's
folder, not the System folder), TimeTool, NiftySpell and gsAIM.

I have a number of other directories in my System folder that might
get stuff added to them from time to time as well.  !Help! files,
Babelfish translators and NiftySpell dictionaries to name a few.

There will be a lot of hassle involved with putting GS/OS on a ROM
disk so I'm still not sure it is worth the bother.  Maybe, as you say,
for schools it might be handy but regular users who want to add/remove
stuff or apply a patch to their systems might run into problems.

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