Re: ProDOS Plus revisited

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net> wrote:

>Supertimer writes ...
>> 
>> Ok, so the HFS FST on GS/OS will allow the use of
>> gigabyte sized hard drives and larger as single partitions.
>> 
>> However, there was some talk in trying to update the
>> ProDOS FST to use volumes larger than 32MB
>> because ProDOS has some advantages, such as
>> speed.  But any changes would break ProDOS.
>> 
>> How about not changing it at all.  How about an INIT
>> or Finder extension or something that would create
>> a VIRTUAL partition, then take each ProDOS volume
>> on a partitioned hard disk and show them as FOLDERS?
>> 
>> This is not as crazy as it seems.  The drawback to
>> having, for example, 40 partition icons on the
>> desktop (for those with large hard drives but refuse
>> to use the HFS FST) is that it clutters.  But think
>> about it...we all have at least 40 folders in the root
>> directory of many of our partitions.  So why not
>> MAP the partitions as FOLDERS in a VIRTUAL
>> volume?
>> 
>> The main drawback I see is that this will only work
>> right with an Apple High Speed SCSI card.
>
>     Changing the way the Finder represents partitions may help when it
>comes to a cluttered display. It is not clear that it will help much
>otherwise (even if we mod the RamFAST to handle more partitions).

I don't see the problem.  If the Finder treats partitions as
folders in the root directory, what drawback IS there?
I mean, it is even better this way because the block size
does not increase so that space is not wasted as it is in
DOS FAT.

I'm thinking of a virtual file system something along the
lines of DriveSpace, but without the compression.