home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
The Atari Compendium
/
The Atari Compendium (Toad Computers) (1994).iso
/
files
/
umich
/
utils
/
eternal2.arc
/
ETERNAL2.DOC
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1985-11-20
|
3KB
|
66 lines
* ETERNAL2 - A reset survivable ramdisk for the Atari ST
* which can be resized and removed
*
* authors - There seem to have been many contributors to
* the development of this and other reset-survivable
* ramdisks. It is belived that John Harris originated
* the idea and others added some embellishments. This
* particular ramdisk is different from most in that it
* can be resized or removed.
*
* use - The ramdisk can be sized the following three ways:
*
* a) By a ramdisk spec found in \auto\ramdisk.dat
* b) By entering a ramdisk spec through the console
* c) By not doing a) or b) to get the default spec
*
* The ramdisk spec has the form yxxx where y is a drive
* letter [a-p] and x is a digit [0-9]. A successfully
* created ramdisk will have a number of clusters equal
* to the number xxx and be installed on drive y
* (note that number of clusters is number of kbytes).
* The default ramdisk spec is h100 (100k ramdisk on
* drive h). To install a ramdisk you must put eternal2.prg
* into an AUTO folder. You may also create and put a
* ramdisk.dat file (containing a ramdisk spec) into the AUTO
* folder but it is not necessary to do so. To install for
* the first time, put the disk with the AUTO folder into
* drive A and press reset (or switch on the computer).
* A ramdisk will be set up according to the spec in the
* .dat file, if it exists, or according to the default spec
* unless you press either the "caps lock" or the "alternate"
* key during boot. If you press "caps lock" no ramdisk will
* be set up (you must keep the key depressed until bootup
* is finished or you see that etrnl2.prg has finished
* executing). If you press "alternate" you will be prompted
* for a ramdisk spec. Enter the spec and hit return to
* create the ramdisk. To remove a ramdisk, press reset and
* keep a finger on the "caps lock" key. To resize a ramdisk
* press reset and keep a finger on the "alternate" key
* until you see the prompt. Then type in the spec and hit
* carriage return. If a ramdisk is installed, the auto
* folder exists on a disk in drive A, reset is pressed and
* you keep your fingers off the keys, the ramdisk will still
* be present with all its original files after
* re-initialization. To prevent a ramdisk from being
* created at startup use Q for the ramdisk spec in the
* ramdisk.dat file. The ramdisk.dat file must have four
* characters otherwise. To get a ramdisk of size less than
* 100k on startup use leading zeros in the size field of
* the ramdisk.dat spec.
*
* notes - A ramdisk spec with two or one digit(s) is also legal.
* If you use a ramdisk spec like m0 you will get a size zero
* ramdisk but you will have lost 9k of space to the overhead
* used in setting it up. Therefore, the proper way to
* remove a ramdisk is by means of the "caps lock" key.
* If you give no ramdisk spec then the default h100 is set
* up. If you give only a device letter, say m, then a RD
* with spec m100 is set up. There is no button to push to
* abort - simply letting the boot process run its course is,
* for all practical purposes, an abort.
*
* John Franco
* Bloomington, IN
* 1/30/87
əəəəəəəəəəəəəəəə