Conference 7.286::atarist

    While on the subject of RAMDISKS: why can't we have a dynamic ramdisk
    like the Amiga, one that increases and decreases in size as needed?
    Is it the lack of a real MMU or something like that?
    

    Nope. It's just that nobody's written one. I'd rather have a cache
    on my winchester drive (like Beckenmeyer's) than a ramdisk, anyway.
    				- HBM
    

    Actually, why not both?  I have my standard RAM: disk on the Amiga,
    but there are a few good disk caches available too.  I currently
    dedicate about 400K to a cache.  The one I use works with floppys
    and hard drives, and you can set all kinds of parameters, such as
    a 'clip' above which it won't flush it's contents.
    
    One of the nicer inventions is the recoverable RAM disk.  It maintains
    it's contents in the event of a crash.  (What!  Amigas crash?) :^)
    
    Ed.
    

    
      Re: ALL
    
          Recently on USENET there appeared a fix to the Atari file
    system, which came from Atari France.  I have a copy.  There was
    some question as too its "public domainedness", which Atari Calf.
    was suppossed to clear up, and report back.  One of them did reply
    that he thought there would be no problem, but his words should
    not be taken as gospel.  He has never come back with an answer.
    
          I will admit to having installed it on my system, and boy
    does it make a difference.  My hard disk acts more like a hard disk
    now, instead of a floppy, and I imagine you would see a similar
    performance increase.  EX: trying to find out how much space is
    left on the hard disk comes back almost instantaneously.  A few
    people had posted benchmarks, but I don't have those handy.  This
    is not just a cache program, this supposedly fixes some of the bloody
    bugs in gemdog.
    
          As with all good things, there are problems, The biggest is
    that it incorporates, a delayed write cache.  This is not really
    a problem on a hard disk, but might be on a floppy system,
    
       EXAMPLE:  You change your floppy before the stuff in the cache
                 has been written (flushed).  This is not good, it can
                 trash your floppies.             
    
    Another problem (at least for 520 ST people anyway) is it takes
    up around 100k of your precious memory away.  
    
         I guess my question here is, should I allow access to this
    product???  It was distributed accross usenet to anyone subscribing
    to comp.binaries.atari.st??
    
    Bill Powers
    

    You're talking about TurboDOS. It's a replacement filesystem for
    GEM. There were severe reservations on Usenet about putting it on
    your machine (many stories of disk corruption were told).
    
    I have a lot of questions about compatibility, too. Does it work
    with PC-Ditto? Does it work with Magic Sac? Does it work with the
    Supra winchester disk utilities?
    
    Never mind the basic idiocy of delayed-write caches (If I wanted
    to run FSCK all the time, I'd boot up UNIX)
    				- HBM

    I would suggest not making it availible.  My sense from the USENET
    discussions was that it really ISN'T public domain.
    
    I don't think the utility is worth the possibility getting burned.
    
    Steph

    
    RE: All
    
         I shan't make it available, till I get more info.  
    Here is how the legality question was left on usenet.
    
    I will fess up, and say that I have used it, and I suppose there
    is the possibility that I still do ;-), but I have never experienced
    any of the problems that a few people on usenet experienced.  Mostly
    the question is that of floppy problems, of which I really don't
    use since I have a hard disk.

  Bill Powers

===============================================================================
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Path: decwrl!ucbvax!agate!eos!ames!ncar!boulder!sunybcs!leo
Subject: TurboDOS legality
Posted: 18 Apr 88 23:29:19 GMT
Organization: guest @ SUNY/Buffalo Computer Science
 
 
Well, a couple days ago I uploaded TurboDOS to GENIE and got a letter from
all the ST sysops saying that is is NOT PD in the US as yet. Something about
Atari US paying the company that developed it some licensing fee before it
could be PD in the states. One of the sysops on GENIE is Alan Pratt of Atari,
so I have to take this as being The Inside Poop, and I will delete my copy
of it as soon as this message is done. I guess I need the memory, anyway.
Just thought all the other enthusiastic users out there would want to know,
especially the people at this or that server...
===============================================================================
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Path: decwrl!ucbvax!agate!ig!uwmcsd1!lakesys!martin
Subject: Re: TurboDOS
Posted: 19 Apr 88 04:59:48 GMT
Organization: Lake Systems - Milwaukee, WI
 
Due to the questionable status of TurbosDOS's Public Domain status, I have
temporarily removed it from availability on netlib.
 
Better safe than sorry......:-(
===============================================================================
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Path: decwrl!labrea!agate!ig!uwmcsd1!marque!uunet!portal!atari!apratt
Subject: Re: TurboDOS legality and sync
Posted: 19 Apr 88 20:35:49 GMT
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale CA
 
From article <10323@sunybcs.UUCP>, by leo@sunybcs (Leo Wilson):
> ... One of the sysops on GENIE is Alan Pratt of Atari,
> so I have to take this as being The Inside Poop ...
 
I don't know anything about the legality of TurboDOS...  There are lots
of sysops on GEnie, and I wasn't consulted.  I wouldn't have had
anything useful to say even if I had been consulted: knowing what is and
is not legal is not my department. 
 
Now, about TurboDOS:  I have read here that it flushes its buffers (sync)
when an application terminates.  But the desktop is an application, and
it never terminates.  If you do "save desktop" it will delay the write
forever -- no way to sync it.

The same goes for desk accessories which you use while on the desktop:
if they do disk writes, the buffers will stay dirty forever because the
desktop never terminates.
 
If it's true that TurboDOS flushes all its buffers when any application
terminates, then "sync" can be the null program.
 
(The null program consists of the single instruction "trap #1" -- it is
the smallest legal ST program.  The longword on the stack when you start
up is always zero, so the function being called is Pterm0().)
 
============================================
Opinions expressed above do not necessarily     -- Allan Pratt, Atari Corp.
reflect those of Atari Corp. or anyone else.      ...ames!atari!apratt
===============================================================================
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Path: decwrl!labrea!agate!ig!uwmcsd1!marque!uunet!portal!atari!good
Subject: Re: TurboDOS legality
Posted: 19 Apr 88 21:11:19 GMT
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale CA
 
 
I have recently spoken to the Software Manager of Atari France, who is 
sending me more complete information on ownership etc.
 
In brief, Atari France funded the development of the TurboDOS, and 
claims copyright to it. Since Atari France does not appear to intend to
sell the product but rather bundle it with hard disks (but wait for the 
info being sent!), the Software Manager can see no reason why the object 
should not be freely available on BBS and networks, WITH THE PROVISO 
THAT ATARI FRANCE, ATARI CORP, AND NO OTHER ATARI ENTITY AND/OR SUBSIDIARY 
AND/OR INDIVIDUAL CAN BE HELD JOINTLY OR SEVERALLY LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES 
WHATSOEVER INCURRED AS A RESULT OF USING TURBODOS.  
 
This might seem a bit strong as expressed above but:
  (a) it's what most software comes with nowadays
  (b) it'll do until I get the info from France
 
More news later!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roy J. Good
Product Development, Atari Corporation
 
Views expressed are my own. Atari may agree or disagree; they have the right.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
===============================================================================
    

    		     Newest TURBODOS  version 
    
    some days ago a got a copy of the latest version of TURBODOS and
    this version works just fine ,i tried it wiht all kind of Programs
    like STAD , CAMPUS , SIGNUM 2 ,WORDPLUS ,DEGAS ,DRIC-C,MEGAMAX,
    ADIMENS and many more..... untile now i find no problems wiht 
    TURBODOS also not wiht the Floppy System
    
    				Fred the Crack
    
    PS: sorry about mi english ...
    

    SI_RAM just came across usenet. It is a DA which alows setting up
    either a print buffer or/and a ramdisk. The sizes for both are
    selectable. Either can be turned on or off by a click of a button.
    Also you can select files from your boot disk (using the fileselector)
    that will be automaticly copied to the ram disk on reset (or powerup
    I'm not sure).
    
    SI_RAM.ARC and .INF can be copied from:
    		MILRAT::DISK$USER3:[WALLACE.PUBLIC.ST].
    
    	Ray

>                    -< SI_RAM is ramdisk and print buffer >-
>
>    SI_RAM just came across usenet. It is a DA which alows setting up
>    either a print buffer or/and a ramdisk. The sizes for both are
>    selectable. Either can be turned on or off by a click of a button.
>    Also you can select files from your boot disk (using the fileselector)
>    that will be automaticly copied to the ram disk on reset (or powerup
>    I'm not sure).
>    
>    SI_RAM.ARC and .INF can be copied from:
>    		MILRAT::DISK$USER3:[WALLACE.PUBLIC.ST].
>    
>    	Ray

    Ray,

    Can you make this file available again ?

    Thanks,

    Cor

    Same place - MILRAT::DISK$USER3:[WALLACE.PUBLIC.ST]SI_RAM.ARC
    
    	Ray

    WHERE CAN I GET THE NEWEST VERSION OF TURBODOS? AND WHAT ARE
    THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BOTH VERSIONS?
    MFG HOERNI
    

    Anyone out there using MDisk?  It's a DA, like SI-Ram, but also includes
    a disk format/copy utility which is very nice.  But therein lies the
    problem.
    
    You can format your disks a number of ways, SS or DS, 40, 80, 81, 82
    tracks, 9, 10 or 11 sectors.  What's weird is that I can format SS/80/9
    OK and DS/80/10 OK but DS/80/9 which is the normal format gives me
    lotsa format errors.  I can retry and get the disk to format OK, but
    having to do 60-odd retries out of 80 tracks is no picnic.
    
    I'd like to be able to use the formatter since as a DA I can do things
    like download from the net into the RAMdisk, format a floppy, copy the
    RAMdisk to floppy, download more, etc. without having to leave WHACK,. 
    I'd prefer to be able to format 9 sector disks.
    
    I've got V4.3 which is dated 1990.  Other than this bug, it works
    great.  It's available on panarthea.
    
    						Brian