🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1990Jan3.014720.8959@santra.uucp> jmunkki@kampi.hut.fi (Juri Munkki) writes:
> My description of the System ROMDisk was not clear enough, since Dave Platt
> misunderstood an important part of the idea.
> 
> I didn't suggest that you could fit a complete System disk in just 512K or
> 1MB. You wouldn't want to do that for many of the reasons that Dave just
> mentioned. You could instead put a lot of stuff that is common to all and
> that doesn't change often (like WDEF, CDEF, LDEF, PACK, FONT, ' snd', ...)
> in the ROMdisk and open it at startup time. The mechanism should be built
> in to the system and should work the way SuitCase currently does.

You're correct... I didn't realize that you were suggesting that the
System and Finder resources be split between the startup disk and the
ROMdisk.

> From what I have read, I gather that SuitCase functionality will be in
> System 7.0 anyway, so moving a few resources to a ROM disk and keeping
> the main system file on a regular floppy sounds like a relatively easy
> thing to do.

Doing it for the System resources doesn't sound terribly difficult...
as you say, it's not all that different from what Suitcase does.

I believe it could prove to be _much_ trickier to move resources from
the Finder, or any other application, into a separate file.  You'd have
to play some additional tricks with the Resource Manager... the ROMdisk
Finder-resource file would have to be kept immediately behind the
"real" Finder file on the resource chain.  There could be some other,
rather hairy implications... in any case, I don't think that this sort
of added functionality would come for free.

I'm not sure whether Apple's resource/Finder changes for System 7.0
are of the Suitcase variety (adding additional files to the Resource
Manager chain), or whether Apple is simply integrating some of the
Font/DA Mover functionality into the Finder.  I hope it's the former...

> This way you could fit a stripped System and Finder on a 800K disk. You
> would have 800K+the amount of ROMDisk for the total system. You could
> use most of that 800K for your printer drivers and any international or
> personal stuff that you want in your system.

Hmmm.  It sounds as if it could work, at least in the short term.
There could be some serious version-sync problems, though... you'd have
to be sure to use the stripped-System-and-Finder combination which goes
with the ROMdisk version you're using.  If Apple upgraded the System,
you might have to have your ROMs upgraded before you could boot the new
version.  And we KNOW how eager Apple is to hand out new ROMs!

> If you had 512K or 1MB of RAM in addition to the ROM, your startup floppy
> could be copied to this RAM and then ejected so that a data/document
> disk could be inserted in the disk drive. I don't think that a RAM disk
> is safe enough for work data, but it would be fine for applications and
> system software that was just copied from a floppy.

Agreed.  This is a very viable approach for people who need a system that
has no hard disk.

> I know it's not fair of me to say that "_they_'ll never do it", but it's
> just my way of teasing Apple. If it bothers people, just let me know and
> I'll stop posting these funny suggestions...

A "smilie" would help... I'm afraid that I failed to distinguish between
your poke-in-the-ribs tease and a serious flame at Apple.  Sorry
about that... :-(

> Saying that Portable users have hard disks anyway is like saying that
> Apple doesn't sell Portables without a hard disk. In theory you can get
> a Portable without the hard disk. I don't know if people are doing that,
> but it would be funny of Apple to introduce something that no one would
> buy. (Ok, this Portable does have a hard disk...)

Well, one might buy a Portable without a hard disk, and then install
a third-party hard disk (using the same Connor drive that Apple uses,
for significantly less $$).

I just can't see using a Portable without a hard disk, though.

	-dave-
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