Re: :( 12 Partition Limit!?!?!??? :(

[johnlb@primenet.com (John Bowling)]

In article <4rqjhg$ki5@atlantis.atlantis.actrix.gen.nz>,
David Empson <dempson@atlantis.actrix.gen.nz> wrote:
>In article <4rneci$e6s@nnrp1.news.primenet.com>,
>John Bowling <johnlb@primenet.com> wrote:
>> David Empson wrote: 
>> >The best method of handling a large hard drive would be for someone to
>> >write a utility that patches ProDOS's internal tables to select between
>> >arbitrary 32MB partitions on a large hard drive (or drives). 
>
>[snip]
>
>> I can see another problem when you are trying to write out a file that
>> fills the partition and then need to use part of the next one.
>
>I wasn't suggesting being able to switch partitions "on the fly" -
>this would be more like swapping a floppy disk, and ProDOS would be
>aware that you had changed disks, so it wouldn't let you continue
>writing to the newly "inserted" disk.  You would probably have to quit
>out of the application you are running to do it safely.  It might be
>possible to do it from a CDA, but it would have to be very careful.
>
>A side note: ProDOS's maximum file size is 16MB, so your suggested
>situation doesn't apply to huge files, only to files which are larger
>than the amount of free space on the volume.

My origional interpretation of the idea was to have an apparently large
drive/partition composed of multiple ones of up to 32 MB, handled 
transparently outside of the FST.  And it didn't have a problem with
file size, only with a file that could be required to span drives or
partitions, or be moved from one partition to another.

And the best solution would be to rewrite ProDOS to increase the partition
size so that this problem wouldn't exist.

John

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