Re: hfs files

[CUTblakeney@home.com (Jeff Blakeney)]

On 6 May 1999 07:20:22 GMT, supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) wrote:

>"Adalbert Goertz" <goertza@fatalerr.com> wrote:
>
>>Why would someone want to read hfs files on a //GS?
>>What types of hfs files can be USED on a //GS?
>
>IIGS files, of course.  Any Apple IIGS program that uses
>GS/OS can be stored and generates documents that can
>be stored on an HFS partition.
>
>What avantage is that, you ask?  For one thing, file names
>can be longer than 15 characters and have spaces.  You
>can save your AppleWorks GS page layout document
>as "Apple User Group Newsletter" rather than "A2.UG.NL"
>if you were using HFS instead of ProDOS, for example.
>The second advantage is that HFS breaks the 32MB per
>partition barrier...and replaces it with the ability to make
>and use 2GB (2000MB) partitions!

There are a couple reasons to not use HFS on the IIgs at present,
though.  First and foremost is the lack of disk utilities for
recovering from errors, undeleting files, sorting directories, et al.

The second reason is that it is horrendously slow.  I've only ever
used HFS on 3.5" floppies a few times up to this point so it didn't
matter much.  However, I now have an 880 MB HFS partition on my IIgs'
hard drive and write to it is as slow, if not slower, than writing to
a 5.25" floppy drive.

There has been some discussion about FSTs and disk utilites in the
Apple II forum on Delphi and I recently started a thread in the A2Pro
forum about upgrading and creating FSTs.  We are hoping to get some
knowledgeable people together to finally figure out how FSTs work and
to fix the existing FSTs and maybe create new ones.

There was also some talk saying that it would be easier to write HFS
disk utilities for the IIgs than to figure out how FSTs work.  This is
probably true but it still won't make the HFS FST any faster so I
personally would like to see a ProDOS like FST or a patch to the
ProDOS FST that allowed larger volumes.

If anyone is interested in these discussions they can be found at:

  A2 Forum - Message: 22036  Subject: Used Hard Drives
     http://forums.delphi.com/apple2/messages/?msg=1913.35&ctx=1

  A2Pro Forum - Message: 2598  Subject: Updating and creating FSTs
     http://forums.delphi.com/a2pro/messages/?msg=327.1&ctx=1

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