Ewen Wannop's ProDOS Directory Info

["Bill Garber" <willy46pa@comcast.net>]

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'ProDOS directories, quoted from Ewen Wannop.'
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"Apple, in their infinite wisdom, decided to limit the 
main directory in ProDOS to 51 files. Sub-directories 
can of course be of any size, and will dynamically 
grow as needed as files are added. They do not shrink 
when files are deleted however, so disk space, once 
consumed is lost as far as storing files is concerned."

"I suspect the 51 file limit was probably due to the 
fact the ProDOS historically grew out of SOS, the 
Apple /// operating system."

"It is very easy to increase the size of the main 
directory, and many, many years ago, I wrote a little 
utility to do this. I can't remember now what I called 
it, and it may or may not be found on the TABBS Library 
Archive CD sold by Syndicomm. A quick search did not 
show anything that matched where I thought it might be, 
but a closer search may find it."

"With that small utility, you could increase the main 
directory to any size you liked. Having tried this, 
I found various problems ensued. ProDOS does not expect 
the size of the main directory to be increased, and 
although most operations seemed to work smoothly, 
AppleWorks, and other applications that operate 
directly on the directory blocks, would cause 
corruption of filenames and worse, when you tried 
to write that 52nd file."

"So increase the size of the directory at your own peril, 
and be prepared for some corruption of the directory with 
certain applications!"

'End Quote'

Bill @ GarberStreet Enterprizez };-) 
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