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Conference hydra::amiga_v1

Title:	AMIGA NOTES
Notice:	Join us in the NEW conference - HYDRA::AMIGA_V2
Moderator:	HYDRA::MOORE

Created:	Sat Apr 26 1986
Last Modified:	Wed Feb 05 1992
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	5378
Total number of notes:	38326

1649.0. "FACC II or FFS" by CSSE::WARD () Thu Sep 01 1988 17:42

    I've got memory to support FACC II.  Will a PD or AmigaDOS obsolete
    this product with a Fast File System in version 1.3 or 1.4?  Heres'
    an excerpt from todays usenet.
    
    
    Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Path: decwrl!ucbvax!hplabs!pyramid!cbmvax!daveh
Subject: Re: Request to Commodore (Fast File System)
Posted: 30 Aug 88 20:53:22 GMT
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
 
in article <8808291950.AA12753@cory.Berkeley.EDU>, dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) says:
> 
> :  I was thinking a while back about the Fast File System not being put on the
> :  floppies  in AmigaDos 1.3.  It is  my  understanding  ...
> 
> 	What I would like to see is an unmount command.... to unmount a 
> device (i.e. DF0:) then remount it under the new filesystem.  Even better,
> have the OS detect the disk format (easily done) and use the proper filesystem.
 
You mean like 1.3's "Assign UNMOUNT DF0:" 
 
> 							-Matt
 
You could probably set up a floppy with FFS, and it would be fast.  The other
problem you'd have is that it wouldn't know when a block went bad.  The standard
file system stores a 32 bit checksum in the block header of each block on your
disk.  Under FFS, there is no block header for data blocks.  This has the nice
feature of letting you store 512 bytes per block instead of 488, and it also
lets multiple blocks be transferred directly to their destination, without
any stripping.  This makes lots of sense using hard disks or similar devices 
that do hardware error checking that's far superior to the file system's 
checksum.  However, with a floppy, there is no underlying hardware error
checking logic; the checksum is all you get. 
-- 
Dave Haynie  "The 32 Bit Guy"     Commodore-Amiga  "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {ihnp4|uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: D-DAVE H     BIX: hazy
		"I can't relax, 'cause I'm a Boinger!"

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
1649.1	Use Facc II; Wait for 1.4.	TLE::RMEYERS	Randy Meyers	`Thu Sep 01 1988 19:35`	19
	Re: .0 There are various sneaky ways of using the FFS with a floppy. The disadvantage is that simple operator errors can corrupt the floppy. (The current version the the FFS doesn't know about removable media, for example.) Experiments have shown that the FFS doesn't make much difference in the speed of the floppy: file opens, reads, and writes end up being only 10-20% faster. Although doing directories does get much faster. The truth is that the Amiga, even using the slow file system, does I/O to 3.5 inch floppies very fast. The Amiga use to be the faster at floppy I/O than the Mac and the ST, however I believe that the MAC SE wins that race by a very small margin. Amiga floppies have just gotten a bad reputation because taking a directory of an Amiga floppy is sloooow. Wait for 1.4 to use the FFS on floppies. Even under 1.4, using Facc II will be a win.
1649.2	WordPerfect speedup using FACC II	CSSE::WARD		`Fri Sep 02 1988 20:49`	34
	This is quoted without permission. The author replied before in note 642.1 on FACC II. The question being answered is about calling CLI (CTRL F1) in WordPerfect and load times for different functions of WordPerfect using FACC II. From: DECWSE::SANTIAGO "Eduardo Santiago" 2-SEP-1988 14:14 To: csse::ward Subj: FACC II Hi... I haven't used my Amiga in 4 months (been away from home) but I'll try to answer your questions. FACC II will not improve write times. It will, however, significantly speed up repeat reads to the same block, such as directory fetches and things of the sort. I'm sorry, I don't have figures on what kind of improvement it will give, especially since it really varies depending on application. If you want it to speed up backups in Word Perfect, I don't think it'll help much. If you want it for a general purpose boost, then it can be pretty significant. Why not post a note in the NOTESfile and see if anyone else has Word Perfect and FACC? Regarding FACC and boot time, no, FACC can't use sticky memory. You'll have to wait for 1.3 to be able to boot from their RAMdisk. However, since startup time mostly involves repeated calls to RUN, ECHO, IF, and other commands, starting up FACC early on in the sequence will definitely give you a big speedup in booting. The bottom line is, it's cheap enough, it works really well when wandering around in the CLI (and I suppose WB too), and has excellent interfaces to tell you just how useful it's being (cache hit ratios, read/write frequencies, many other goodies). It also has excellent support from ASDG, which is a great company. I'd recommend it. ^E