If you are familiar with the AppDisk, skip to the last section, "Changes" to see whats new.
SHAREWARE NOTICE
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AppDisk is shareware, if you use it, please send $15 to:
Mark Adams
11215 Research Blvd. #2036
Austin, TX 78759
Any comments/bugs can be sent to MarkA38 on America Online or Maverick.Sft on AppleLink.
INSTRUCTIONS
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AppDisk is a ramdisk application that lets you use part of your ram as a fast disk drive, without restarting your Mac as most INIT/CDEV based ramdisks do. It is System 7.0 dependent, and is 32 bit clean(so you can really use some of the 256 megs of ram you've got in your Quadra 900, right?!). It also has the ability to save its contents to provide some protection against loss of data due to system crashes.
Using the Appdisk is simple. First, set the size of the ramdisk you want by selecting the AppDisk application and choosing "Get Info" from the File menu in the Finder. In the lower right corner of the Get Info window, there is an editable field labeled "Current Size:". Type the size of the ramdisk you would like into this field and close the Get Info window. Then double-click the AppDisk icon and the ramdisk will automatically be mounted, and should appear on your desktop.
The name of the ramdisk that appears will be the same as the name of the AppDisk application.
To remove the ramdisk(and get all your memory back!), either Quit from the AppDisk application, or drag the AppDisk disk icon on the desktop into the trash.
Basically as long as you want to use the AppDisk, just leave the application running in the background. When you don't want the disk any more or need ram for other applications, quit the AppDisk.
If you change the size of the AppDisk, be sure to copy any files you want to keep off it it first. Re-sizing the appdisk causes the old contents to be thrown away and a new blank ramdisk to be created.
AppDisk Save Options
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The AppDisk defaults to not saving its contents, and will warn you when you quit the application that you are about to lose all its contents. If you would like to save the contents of your AppDisk, you can set up the saving options by choosing Setup… from the File menu.
After choosing Setup…, the Save Options dialog will appear. To turn on the save option, check the "Save AppDisk Contents" checkbox. Once you have turned on the save option, you can save the disk contents in several ways:
1) "Auto-save on quit" - if this is checked, the AppDisk will save itself automatically whenever the application is quit, or the ramdisk is thrown away in the Finder. If this is not checked, then when you quit or throw away the ramdisk, AppDisk will ask you whether or not to save the contents before exiting.
2) "Auto-save every XX minutes" - If this is checked, the AppDisk will automatically save itself out every XX minutes. Simply type the number of minutes between saves in the edit text box. When this option is on, you can also turn the "Audio warning" on, which will play a sound when the save process starts and ends, so you know whats happening when your machine seems to freeze up for a few seconds.
3) "Save" from the File menu - At any time, you may choose "Save" from the AppDisk File menu, and the current contents of the AppDisk will be saved.
NOTE- The AppDisk saves its contents into the AppDisk application file, so you don't need to worry about other backup files cluttering your hard disk. After you save the contents of the ramdisk, the size of the AppDisk application will get larger, depending on how much stuff was in the ramdisk. Only the part of the ramdisk that is used is saved, so if you have 500k in a 2000k ramdisk, the AppDisk application will get approximately 500k larger. If you turn off the save options, the AppDisk application will return to its original size (about 40k).
KNOWN BUGS
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There is currently a conflict with File Sharing. If you have File Sharing turned on, you can not quit the AppDisk, because the System leaves AppleShare files open on the AppDisk (even if the disk isn't being shared!). This seems to be a bug in the System, and I haven't found a way around it other than to turn off File Sharing before attempting to quit.
1.4 CHANGES
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A new feature has been added to the "Setup" dialog. If you have something saved in the AppDisk and the "Ignore changes to contents" checkbox is on, no changes will be saved when the AppDisk quits or you restart/shutdown. This way if you have something you know doesn't need to be saved every time the AppDisk quits (like an application file, or a data file you don't change but simply use as a reference), the AppDisk won't even attempt to save changes to the ramdisk when you quit it. WARNING - if you have this item checked and put an important file on the AppDisk, it will NOT be saved. The next time you start up the AppDisk it will just have the original files in it. Turning off the checkbox returns the AppDisk to normal save operations.
Fixed a bug that caused the machine to crash if you ShutDown with the AppDisk running (only in System 7.0.1).
Fixed a bug with the System 7 Tuneup that would sometimes cause the AppDisk not to mount the ramdisk when it was launched.
Lowered the minimum memory size to 350k, so you can make smaller ram disks easily.
1.3 CHANGES
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A new "Audio Warning" option has been added for the Timed Save option. If you turn this on, whenever the AppDisk does its timed save, it will play a sound before the save starts and when the save is finished. This lets you know whats happening when your machine seems to freeze up for a few seconds.
If you paste a new icon onto the AppDisk application in the Finder's Get Info window, whenever a new AppDisk is created, its disk icon will be the same as the new application icon.
A warning was added when you launch the AppDisk after changing its size, so that you don't automatically lose all of the old AppDisk contents.
The minimum suggested Multifinder size has been lowered to 768k, so you can set the size of the AppDisk lower than 1024k without getting the Finder's warning alert.
This version has been tested on a Quadra 700 & 900, and works fine. The size of the AppDisk has been tested up to 256 megs, although for more than 99,999k you have to set the size by editing the 'SIZE' resource in the AppDisk via ResEdit.
1.2 CHANGES
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Finally solved the last save bug. Previous versions still could save the contents of the AppDisk incorrectly if you ran the AppDisk from inside the Startup Items folder and then restarted. This final fix should solve the problems.
Fixed a bug that caused AppDisk to not clean up some driver stuff after it quit. This didn't cause any crashes, but could eventually fill up the driver table if you ran AppDisk a billion times.
Added a cool new about box.
The ramdisk volume will now appear with a mondo cool color icon when it is first mounted on the desktop!
1.1 CHANGES
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A new setup option has been added, "Switch to background after launch". If this is checked, the AppDisk will switch back to the Finder after it is set up(good for using AppDisk in the Startup Items folder).
A bug which caused the contents of the ramdisk to be saved inconsistently when restarting
the mac or quitting from the AppDisk has been fixed. The contents of the AppDisk should be saved under all circumstances now if an orderly Quit or Restart/Shutdown occurs(if the "Save on quit" option is checked").
Fixed a bug that caused crashes on 68000 machines.
AppDisk now uses much less processor time while in the background.
Fixed a bug that allowed you to quit the AppDisk while there were still files open on the ramdisk. This would leave the ramdisk open on the desktop with no ram or driver and generally cause very bad things to happen.
