NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #19/NN_1992_19.iso/spool/comp/sys/apple2/19594

Internet Message Format | 1992-08-29 | 2.8 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!usc!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
From: [e-mail] (Michael Foegelle)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: gs.os.FST?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 27 Aug 92 14:35:07 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX
Lines: 42

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Neal Pitts) writes:
>>>      Uhhh..  WHERE would you fit all of this new stuff? ProDOS 8 and
>BASIC.SYSTEM barely fit now.. it would seem logical that the code to do this
>new stuff would be bigger than the code to do the current stuff... so how do
>you fit it? <<
>
>I'll assume your talking about the "ProDOS II" I mentioned for the 8-bit
>machines.  To be clear, I imagined ProDOS II to be a extended ProDOS with new
>capabilities while keeping compatability with old ProDOS.  Where it would fit
>is beyond me. :)  I'll give that some thought, but I would think it would be
>housed on a seperate disk, like GS/OS boot disks are now.

I believe the original question meant "Where would you fit all of this
new stuff IN MEMORY?!!"  There are about five or six unused pages left
in the language card memory space (where Prodos resides) most of which
are in $D000 bank two.  You can't afford to take away any more program
space from regular memory, and would lose compatability with everything
if you tried.  The only option remaining (which I had heard rumors that
Prodos 2.0 was going to be, but knew that Apple wanted to avoid doing
as long as possible) would be to got to the auxiliary memory bank and
use the language card space there too.  That would make the new Prodos
incompatable with any computers other than a 128k //e or //c, thus the
obvious reluctance to do so.  It would also probably have trouble with
many current programs that use extended memory and have heretofore used
that ram space with reckless abandon.  =)  However, such a monster WOULD
make the 8 bit apples with 128k or more a much more useful machine by
making it easier to use the aux bank of memory.  Since Prodos would
have to be handling page switching anyways, it could fascilitate direct
reads into aux memory and programs that run from banks other than bank
zero.  That's just my nickel's worth.  (Come on, what can you get for
two cents these days anyways?!!  =)

Michael Foegelle


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