Re: Bag of Tricks

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

In article <1993Oct16.213234.3721@pro-woolf.clark.net> rmorgridge@pro-woolf.clark.net (R Morgridge) writes:
>  I have a question about the ProDOS-8 utility called Bag of Tricks
> (Version 2.1) from Quality.. It doesn't seem to recognize the new
> version of ProDOS 8.. (v2.02). When using FIXCAT I get the message
> saying that "this file version is >version 9"..

That isn't anything to do with the ProDOS-8 version.

There are a couple of bytes in each directory entry, which were
originally defined as the version of ProDOS which was used to create
the file, and the minimum version which would recognise it.

These fields were never used for their intended purpose.  The only
place they are checked by ProDOS (pre 1.8) is in a directory entry
which points to a subdirectory.

IIgs System 5.0 (or thereabouts) redefined these fields to encode
upper/lower case filenames (if bit 15 is set, bits 14-0 indicate which
characters are lower-case).  ProDOS-8 1.8 was patched to completely
ignore these bytes.  Some programs (such as ShrinkIt) recognise them
and display lower-case filenames where appropriate.

Fixcat pre-dates this change, and therefore knows nothing about it.
Any file which has lower-case letters in its filename will produce
this message.  It thinks the file requires a future version of ProDOS-8
and asks you if you want to patch it back to the normal value (0 or 1).

There is nothing you can do about this other than avoid using FIXCAT,
or answer each question yes/no.  (You could use a short timeout for
the default answer, but I wouldn't recommend it.)  If you tell FIXCAT
to fix the "version number", the filename will be upper-case when you
get back to GS/OS.

Another point about FIXCAT: _never_ use it on a disk which contains
files with resource forks.  Any attempt to correct the storage types or
to change the bitmap will destroy all such files.

>  Anybody know if Quality ever plans on putting out an update to
> Bag of Tricks that won't give that error message?

No.  Quality SOFTWARE doesn't exist any more.  They are not connected
in any way with Quality COMPUTERS.

> It's the only utility that will do a directory recovery for me..
> ProSEL's Mr.Fixit doesn't do the job for me. If they aren't doing an
> update, how about a patch?

That shouldn't be a major problem.  I don't feel like doing it at the
moment - too many other things to do - but maybe someone else could oblige?
-- 
David Empson                                                               
dempson@swell.actrix.gen.nz                                                
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand