Re: Can I have HFS on GS ?

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) writes...

>There is also an older freeware utility which can read MFS volumes.  I
>can't remember its name off the top of my head - something like
>MacTransGS?  It also runs under ProDOS-8.

    Yep, that's it, you remembered the name correctly. One thing to
point out though, despite having "GS" in the name, it runs just as
well on any other Apple II equipped with a 3.5 floppy drive. The
program was actually written in Applesoft BASIC if I remember right.

>The System 6.0.1 HFS FST is the best option, as it gives you read/write
>access.  There are a few complications, however:

>2. You need to boot from a hard drive to be able to fit the HFS FST on
>your system disk.

    You can of course make room on your 800K system disk by deleting
unnecessary files. For example, if running only on a ROM 01 machine
you can delete 'TS3' from /System/System.Setup (or on a ROM 3, you
can delete 'TS2'). Both are larger than the HFS.FST, thus should
allow you to free up enough space to install it. Before I owned a
hardrive on my IIgs, I used to use the HFS.FST to transfer files
between various Mac's and my IIgs running off a floppy drive.

>3. The FST's implementation of HFS is buggy.  There was a bug fix which
>corrects the most serious problem (miscalculated block numbers).  I
>don't have the details on hand, but I think this problem only affected
>large volumes (e.g. hard drive partitions).

    Yep, very buggy indeed. You can easily cause trouble by something
as common place as copying files over to an HFS partition and getting
a "Volume Full" error (I can't remember the exact results, but I think 
it corrupts the last few files you copied, which then cannot be erased. 
I might be thinking of something else though). What worries me mostly 
are there are *zero* utilities written for the IIgs to maintain HFS 
volumes, so you cannot optimize, repair, undelete, etc. That makes it 
a good idea to have a Macintosh handy to hook the drive up to since 
they have HFS maintaince software.

>5. The HFS implementation seems to be even slower than ProDOS.  It takes
>a considerable amount of time to work out what it wants to do on a large
>hard drive, e.g. when copying lots of files.

    It is also quite slow just writing files to plain 800K and 1.44 MB
floppy disks. I was recently reminded of that when preparing disks to
use with Fusion (a Macintosh emulator for my Pentium) and for my real
Macintosh Plus. Although not directly related here, I noticed the GS 
is also very slow writing to MS-DOS floppy disks too.

>Don't forget that you also have the option of reading and writing ProDOS
>volumes on the Mac if it is running System 7.5 or later with PC Exchange
>installed.  This might be an easier option.

    I just discovered it is easier to AppleTalk network my IIgs with
the Macintosh Plus (running System 7.0) and transferring files back
and forth that way. :) That always avoids the size limitation of
floppy disks if you want to transfer files greater than 800K or
1.44 MB in size. I only wish there were an Ethernet card, so I
could set up an network between my Pentium and the IIgs (I use
both machines regularly, and always transferring files back and
forth by floppy disk).

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca