SPACE 1/SPACE - Library 1 - Volume 1.iso/misc~1/18/ulticopy.doc

Text File | 1986-08-16 | 4KB | 76 lines

Instructions for The Ultimate RAMdisk Copy Program
July 27, 1986
File name ULTCPY.PRG or ULTICOPY.PRG

Program and documentation copyright (c) 1986 by David Duberman

If you find this program useful and/or would like to receive the source
code, if for no other reason than to remove the two annoying requests for
a keypress, send a blank formatted 3.5" diskette and a check for $5 to:

David Duberman
1645 West Selby Lane
Redwood City, CA 94061

How to use The Ultimate RAMdisk Copy Program

It's finally here!  The program every RAMdisk user in the ST universe has
been breathlessly awaiting!  This program does no less than to copy
automatically every file and every folder (except the AUTO folder) from
any floppy to a ramdisk (or to any other disk).

You don't have to use the program from an AUTO folder, but it's the
easiest way.  Simply copy the program into the AUTO folder on your boot
disk after copying in a ramdisk program.  Of course, you should use a
.PRG type ramdisk program rather than an .ACC type, which won't run out
of the AUTO folder.  The best ramdisk available today is in the public
domain, and comes in two forms, usually called RAMDISK.PRG and
RAMDSK1M.PRG, plus a RAMDISK.DOC instructions file.  Its main advantage
is that its contents survive a press of the Reset button.  You can
download it from the Atari Base BBS at Atari headquarters in Sunnyvale,
CA.  The number is [phone].

The recommended ramdisk program uses drive D: for the ramdisk; others use
C:, and some let you specify which drive.  You can tell ULTICOPY which
drives to use for both input and output in one of three ways.  The
easiest way is to create a two-character ASCII file named COPY.INF in the
main directory of your boot disk.  One way to do this is to use the
Personal Pascal editor or any other text editor.  You can also use 1st
Word in non-WP mode, or print to disk from ST Writer.  Or if you're using
ColorWriter, the great new word processor from Shanner International
Corp., just rename the standard output .DOC file.  In any case, the first
two characters in the file are what's important ; the program ignores any
characters beyond these.  They should be the letter specifiers for the
input drive and the output drive, in that order.  For instance, to copy
all files and folders from floppy drive A to ramdisk D, the file should
be:

AD

Any lower case letters are converted to upper case.  Another legal file
to copy everything from drive B to drive C would be:

bc

If the program doesn't find the COPY.INF file, it prompts you for the two
letters.  You're prompted for each separately; enter each in upper or
lower case.  If you don't enter two letters between A and Z, you're
prompted again.  If you press Return at either prompt, the program uses a
default of A, and for the output drive the default is D.

Then the program goes to work and copies all files and folders (except
the AUTO folder) from the specified floppy to the specified ramdisk.  The
program uses recursion to handle nested directories several levels deep.
Count on about six levels of subdirectories deep with full (11-character)
folder names; more with shorter folder names.  All files from all
folders are copied into the correct folder on the ramdisk.  Warning: if
your directories are nested too deeply, the program may crash!

That's it!  Crude but effective, and the price is right!  The program is
no slouch speed-wise, either.  Pass this program and instructions file to
your friends if you like, but please don't sell it for profit!

Thank you.

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