Re: Where have all the buffers gone? (long time passing...)

[dalloff@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Dave Althoff)]

Les Wetzel (bciu4@epix.net) wrote:

: Thanks for the help!  Sorry I wasn't more specific in what I was trying to do.

: I have some games that have been deprotected and are stored on 5.25 DOS 3.3
: floppies.  These games (Apple Panic, Snack Attack, Hard Hat Mack, etc.) work
: great when they are BRUN'ed in DOS 3.3.

: I am working with actual objects not disk images.  For example, Hart Hat Mack
: takes up 166 sectors on a DOS 3.3 floppy.

: I am trying to convert the games to ProDos format so that I can put them on
: a much larger, reliable, and faster storage medium (i.e. 3.5 diskettes).  I
: would like to put, as many of them as possible, on 800K diskettes.  Then setup
: a menu system so that I can pick the one that I want to run.

Why would you want to do a thing like that?  What you need is a shareware
package called "AMDOS.SHK" which is available from the usual Apple ][
sites.  The package allows you to add a patch to GENUINE DOS 3.3 to allow
it to access 800k disks.  Each disk is divided up into its two sides,
Drive One's sides are accessed as ",D1" and ",D3"; Drive Two's sides are
accessed as ",D2" and ",D4".  This lets you do what you really want to do
(archive the game library on 3.5" disks) but avoids the problems inherent
in trying to pull DOS 3.3 tricks while running BASIC.SYSTEM and ProDOS. 
My suggestion?  Don't bother trying to use ProDOS for this.  Use DOS 3.3
instead.  It will save you lots of headaches.  I'll continue with some of
the dirty little secrets I've discovered...

: The problem is that some of the converted games do not work in ProDos.  When
: I try to BRUN or "-" in ProDos, I get the following message, "No Buffers
: Available".

: What I think is happening, is that some of the games load below $800 in RAM
: and this is giving ProDos fits.

That could be it, or the programs are trouncing BASIC.SYSTEM itself. 
BASIC.SYSTEM is very *very* protective of system memory, and if you damage
any of the memory it has reserved for itself, it will refuse to do as you
request.  I should say, "or the programs are TRYING TO TROUNCE
BASIC.SYSTEM itself."

There is a related problem that gave me fits some time ago.  You may
recall that under DOS 3.3, Uncle DOS provides three file buffers by
default, and you can allocate more buffers using the MAXFILES command. 
This moves HIMEM:, and keeps the file buffers from getting trounced. 
ProDOS, or rather, BASIC.SYSTEM, allocates buffers dynamically, so if your
Applesoft program uses lots of strings (as mine usually do), you can fill
up the memory space that BASIC.SYSTEM would otherwise use for the next
file buffer.  The result?  "NO BUFFERS AVAILABLE."  It took me a week and
lots of advice from David Empson and others to run that one down.

In a nutshell, the easiest solution to *your* problem is AMDOS or one of
the other packages that lets you use Genuine Uncle DOS 3.3 on a 3.5" disk.
 Then your problem will mysteriously vanish 8-)

--Dave Althoff, ][.
-- 
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