Re: Ewen Wannop's ProDOS Directory Info

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

Bill Garber writes ...
> 
> -------------------------------------------------
> 'ProDOS directories, quoted from Ewen Wannop.'
> -------------------------------------------------
 ....
> 
> "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'
 ....

     Interesting info. Wonder if Ewen tried moving the Volume Bit Map so that
he would have contiguous Volume Directory blocks. If he did, then the failures
may have been due to Appleworks's assumption that the VBM would start at Block
6. It would be writing file entries to Block 6 _and_ marking the VBM at Block
6-- sure to mess up the directory.



Rubywand