Re: Utility to write DOS 3.3 disks under GS/OS?

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Jeff Blakeney wrote:

>Some have speculated, and it makes some sense to me as well, that
>Apple made the DOS 3.3, Pascal and MS-DOS FSTs read only because there
>was no way to support extended files (files with resource forks) on
>those file systems.  At least, there isn't an easy way to do so.
>Apple did create the AppleSingle and AppleDouble file formats a long
>time ago to address this problem so the FSTs could have been written
>to read and write extended files to operating systems that don't
>support extended files by using one of those formats.

If this is actually the reason, I am very disappointed in Apple--again.

There is no reason to insist that everything in the world support
forked files--and indeed nothing but a few Apple OSs do.

Note that this didn't stop them from implementing a read/write
NON-forked MSDOS file system for the Mac, when it became
obvious that not having it was costing them sales.

It is only a little more work to implement a read/write non-forked
MSDOS file system, given a working read-only implementation.

>However, it would have been more work which, at the time, I'm sure
>Apple wasn't willing to pay for.

And no one _asked_ them to do that work, since non-forked
files are quite enough for the rest of the world!

Ack!

On a separate, but related, topic...

<flame>
Non-techie family members regularly forward emails to me
that contain JPG-encoded pictures that they "cannot open"
on their Macs or PCs (yes, they use both).

The source of the problem is almost always the automatic
invocation of a system-specific archiving or encoding format
for an email attachment.

This is nonsense.

Email is intended to be a universal medium, not a balkanized
medium of Mac-email users and PC-email users.  Base64 encoding
was adopted as a _generic_ encoding for binary information, and
it is very annoying to find Mac-sent email with BinHex encoded files.
Of course, there are programs for every platform which can handle
BinHex--but non-technical _users_ can't!

Archiving is another worthless distinction between the two camps.
Stuffit is a fine archiver, though is doesn't pack most files as well
as many Zip archivers.  Why can't we start a campaign to move to
a generic archiver?  I realize that it will take 5-10 years to get it
"mostly" done, for all practical purposes, but we need to get started.

I'm sure that Mac users will say that a new, "neutral" format must
be chosen so as not to favor the PC platform, but, let's face it,
with over 90% of the user base on PCs, it really does make more
sense for the minority platform to move into conformance with
the _de facto_ standards in use by the vast majority.

This would have the effect of making email with attachments almost
as easy as plain email, finally.

Not only would I stop getting most "I can't open this attachment"
pleas for help, but, more importantly, people who have given up
on sending pictures, etc., through email would slowly regain their
trust in it as a communication medium.
 </flame>
-michael

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