Re: IIgs/PC Network Development

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

Supertimer <supertimer@aol.com> wrote:

> dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) wrote:
> 
> >To make it look like a logical disk in Finder and other applications,
> >you would have to write a GS/OS File System Translator for this virtual
> >file system.
> >
> >Several possibilities come to mind:
> >
> >1. Write a GS/OS block device driver that communicates over the serial
> >port, and (with help from the PC) implements a fake volume with an
> >existing file system.
> >
> >This doesn't help, because you must emulate either ProDOS (32 MB limit)
> >or HFS (unreliable).  It would also be extremely difficult to coordinate
> >on the PC side, unless you actually implemented it as a massive disk
> >image file, which defeats the whole purpose.
> 
> Once again, I propose DOS FAT.

So you are suggested having an MS-DOS disk image file on a PC, which is
accessed by a client/server driver arrangement?

You can't use the real PC volume for this - it is not a good idea for an
application under Win95/98/NT to have block level read/write access to a
volume, and probably isn't even allowed under NT.

Thus you are no better off using FAT than any other file system inside a
disk image on the PC.  Worse, in fact, because you now also have to
update the MS-DOS FST to be read/write, which is not technically
feasible until someone is able to work out enough information about how
GS/OS and FSTs are tied together, and how to write FSTs.

Besides, if you go to the trouble of understanding FSTs, you are much
better off (for Steve's desired functionality) writing something
equivalent to the AppleShare FST (but simpler), with the server software
on the PC doing file-level accesses to the PC volume, with no special
disk image mechanism required.

I'm trying to consider realistic solutions that are achievable given
currently available information, or a moderate amount of reverse
engineering (like with my suggestion for replacing the low-level parts
of the AppleTalk stack).  I wouldn't put FSTs into this category.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand