Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bu-cs!bucsb!shack
From: shack@bucsb.UUCP (Randy Shackelford)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: RE: DOS/ProDOS
Keywords: i'm too lazy to think of any.
Message-ID: <1806@bucsb.UUCP>
Date: 24 Jun 88 18:29:08 GMT
Organization: Boston Univ Comp. Sci.
Lines: 115


SEWALL@UCONNVM.BITNET (Murph Sewall) writes:

>>1. volumes cannot be >400K (making hard disks, RAM disks, and 3.5" disks a
>>   pain to use)

>I rarely have to deal with a file over 50K let alone 400K. 
Since, with few exceptions, DOS programs run in 64k (the exceptions only use
128k), it is a foregone conclusion that your files are less than 50k, as DOS
programs cannot handle large files.  
>Though I like hard disks for working storage and
>software, they aren't reliable enough to trust anything truly important
>to (hence the constant admonishions to back up the rascals).  Finished
>work belongs on disks (plural) anyway.  I can keep track of volume
>numbers as easily as pathnames, so two 400K volumes on a 3.5" disk isn't
>really a handicap.  My RAM-Charger just died; while RAM disks are
>truly neat, they are even less reliable than hard disks.
Others have commented on this, so I will not. 

>Note: My original post that occasioned all this passion for ProDOS DID
>opine that the best thing about ProDOS is the hierarchical file structure.
Glad you have something nice to say about it.
>>2. no support for modern hardware such as eighty column displays, extended
>>   memory and interrupting devices such as the mouse

>Funny how well my 80 column card works with my DOS 3.3 applications; and
In 1983, DOS received a minor mod (yet another patch, as this is the only way
DOS could be changed). A bit of extra code was added to help support eighty
column displays on the //e. So assuming you have this version (how can you 
tell?) then your eighty column display will be ok.
>I've got a number of 128K DOS 3.3 programs.  Maybe ProDOS is better for
>RAM > 128K, but I haven't found any real need to have multiple documents
>in memory at once (and a 400K RAMFactor partition makes it possible to
>move pretty rapidly from one document to another anyway).
If you wanted to, you couldn't have multiple documents open in a DOS program.
They just can't handle enough memory! Are you aware of how the RAMFactor works
with DOS? You do IN# to its slot and it *PATCHES* the RWTS image in memory to
use the RAMFactor as a disk device. How does ProDOS support it? Well, ProDOS
supports anything with a device driver. So nothing has to be done for it.
So which OS can make better use of the card?
>I own a mouse.  Mostly it gathers dust.  I guess it's because I'm
>"command driven" - learned to touch type 30 years ago.  I do find I
Looks like you will stay that way. No DOS programs are being released which
support the mouse. Are any DOS programs being released at all these days?

>>3. customizing DOS requires version-dependent patches which may or may not be
>>   compatible with commercial software

>I sent Bill Basham his $30 for Diversi-DOS years ago.  It works with just
>about everything that's not copy protected except SOFTERM 2 (which INSISTS
>upon its own one-of-a-kind custom DOS's).  Most of what I use isn't
>copy protected. 
Gee. When I used DOS software, it was practically all copy protected. 

>Today's commercial software is MUCH less inclined to copy protection
>and special DOS's because of the growing demand for compatibility with
>hard disks, which really has little to do with whether the operating system
>is DOS 3.3 or ProDOS.
Why do you care if software works with a hard disk? You don't like 'em,
remember? Moreover, the trend towards copyable software more or less started 
after DOS died, so what is happening today will not have much effect on DOS
software. 

>>4. DOS has no consistent call interface; as a result, DOS was only reassembled
>>   once in its five-year life, as this would cause routine entry points to
>>   change, causing programs to quit working. As a result, all bug fixes
>>   consisted of applying patches to the existing code.

>That's more esoteric than I care to investigate, but it strikes me as
>peculiar that Diversi-DOS, David DOS, One-Key DOS, and ProntoDOS work
>so well.  I don't believe any of those are merely patches to the existing
>code.
Do you think Apple gave the authors of these programs the source to DOS?
Even if they did, how could they hope to have programs work with them?
My Pronto-DOS manual documents where the patches to DOS which do its thing
are located. The result is a mass of klugy patches jumbled up with a so-so
antiquated operating system. Ever wonder why there has never been Pronto-
ProDOS or Diversi-ProDOS? Apple did it right for once! They can fix bugs or
even totally change the way the system works, and programs will still work!

>>                                ...Compare DBase under CP/M which can run on
>>a 64K ][+ and Appleworks 2.0 which uses your peripheral slot RAM card for
>>desktop space and you see what I mean.

>AppleWorks 2.0 does RELATIONAL data bases?  When did it start doing
>that?  Even dBase II's outmoded programming language outstrips anything
>available in AppleWorks (although I gather some of Beagle Brother's
>extentions provide much of the same functiionality), and I suspect that
>dBase manipulates large files at "blinding speed" compared to AppleWorks
>(maybe AW keeps up on a IIgs).  CP/M will work from hard drives, I expect
>a driver for a slot RAM card could be written easily enough.
Well, you chopped out the text in which I made my point, so let me reiterate.
CP/M runs on many systems; hence, it runs on a minimum configuration. Since 
CP/M is meant for 64k machines (pretty minimum already), a program of any
substantial size will have to swap overlays and do other similar inefficient
methods to run. Contrasted with modern ProDOS software which can make use of
any hardware in your system, these seem like junk.
By the way, along with my Z80 card, I have AE's new CP/M system software, 
which allows CP/M to use both 3.5's hooked up to my IIgs and my IIgs RAM disk
along with 5.25's and the small RAM disk set up in the extra 64k. It also 
supports the 3.5 and 1 mb RAM card in my //e. Yet my Z80 card and software
sit gathering dust. The reason? Compared to new ProDOS software, that stuff
SUCKS.

>The point is I am NOT anti-ProDOS.  Everything I've seen indicates it
>is a MUCH more sensible system for developing applications, but a lot
>of this "ProDOS is the ONLY way to go" chatter seems to be coming from
>people who arrived (and bought their software) after 1985.
I have been using II's since '82, and have owned one since '83. I would not
call my self some snot-nosed youngster who has only been computing since '85.
Yet, I know when it is time to move on; nowadays, ProDOS is "the only way to
be sure", to quote one of my favorite movies.


Randy Shackelford  shack@bucsb.bu.edu