Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rochester!cornell!batcomputer!braner
From: braner@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (braner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Two questions about TOS
Message-ID: <1973@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Date: Thu, 8-Jan-87 22:55:32 EST
Article-I.D.: batcompu.1973
Posted: Thu Jan  8 22:55:32 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 9-Jan-87 06:14:48 EST
Reply-To: braner@batcomputer.UUCP (braner)
Organization: Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY
Lines: 36

[]

Two questions about TOS/GEM/???

A program I am writing reads and writes disk sectors using the BIOS call
Rwabs().  It is a .TOS program: no GEM graphics.  I am using a 1040ST with
its one disk drive.  I am accessing both "logical" drives A and B.
I ran the same program from micro-C-Shell and from the desktop.  In the
first case, GEM dialog boxes appeared, asking me to "insert disk B in
drive A" and such.  In the second case they did not, and I got NO WARNING
from the system about when to insert which disk.

The question: Since GEM is supposed to call GEMDOS, and not the other
way around (says my brand new Balma and Fitler book), where do those
dialog boxes come from?  Are they due to some initiative of mCS?  It
seems paradoxical that from the desktop (a GEM environment) they are
absent (in this case) while in mCS (a TOS text-only environment) they
appear.  How can I make them appear, or in any other way get automatic
disk-swap user-directives?

The other question:  A program uses Rwabs() to copy a bunch of sectors
off a floppy to the 'eternal' RAMdisk.  These sectors include the FATs,
root directory, some files, and some subdirectories.  Results:  Everything
seems fine at root level, files usable.  BUT: trying to open a subdirectory
(from the desktop) causes the usual animation but leaves me in the
root.  No error messages.  Trying the same in micro-C-Shell yields
a "not found" error, even though the names of the subdir's appear in "ls".
Snooping around with a debugger failed to show anything wrong with the
RAMdisk data:  The subdirectory files are where the root says they are,
and the files in the subdir's are both listed there and physically
present in the RAMdisk area where it says they are.  What's going on?

Any help would be appreciated.  (Two bonus points to whoever guesses what
in the world could such a program be good for... :-)

- Moshe Braner