Re: GS/OS: looking for info on VCB and FCB

["Peter Watson" <paw77@N_O_hotmail_S_P_A_M.com>]

"David Empson" <dempson@actrix.gen.nz> wrote in message 
1i4v73r.1hrn0s71a0unveN%dempson@actrix.gen.nz">news:1i4v73r.1hrn0s71a0unveN%dempson@actrix.gen.nz...
> It would be great to have new FSTs for GS/OS. A read/write MS-DOS one in
> particular would be very useful, given the almost universal adoption of
> FAT16 as an interchange format.

David, did you ever wonder why I didn't finish the job I started with the 
MSDOS Utilities and MUG!, and write an MS-DOS FST?

Mainly it was because I didn't feel like disassembling GS/OS!
;-)

Interestingly, a few of the internal calls used in FSTs were described in 
some of the pre-release GS/OS documentation that I have. I got all excited 
when I first noticed this, but it didn't last long as it turned out most or 
all of the important calls were still missing.  :-(

Back in 1992 I was fortunate enough to attend KansasFest in its heyday, when 
many of Apple's Apple II developers still attended. I spoke to Greg Branche 
(who wrote the read-only MS-DOS FST) and he told me he'd actually been 
working on a full read-write MS-DOS FST which was "largely completed" and he 
still had hopes it might get released. Unfortunately he was never able to 
get the go-ahead to finish it and/or release it.

It might be interesting to see whether someone could try to contact Greg 
Branche at Apple and see whether he would be willing to drop any hints. 
Always assuming he can still remember any!  :-)

-- 
Peter Watson
-- Write to MS-DOS disks on the Apple IIgs?
-- Impossible!  ;-)