Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!polyslo!jearls
From: jearls@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (  Chumley The Troll  )
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: 35 track floppies
Keywords: Formatting
Message-ID: <1989Oct3.155906.12050@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>
Date: 3 Oct 89 15:59:06 GMT
Reply-To: jearls@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (  Chumley The Troll  )
Organization: M.Y.T.H., Inc.
Lines: 28

In article <13251@athertn.Atherton.COM> paul@athertn.Atherton.COM (Paul Sander) writes:
>This looks simple enough, but in my opinion the formatting of diskettes
>should be done by the OS, not by an application.  Again, I'll check to see
>how far off-base I am in my assumptions.  (I still can't believe I can't
>do an INIT from the Applesoft prompt.  But then I've always used the supplied
>programs.)  In any case, another tweek to the application must be done if
>Apple decides to support 77-track 5.25" floppies in such a way that they plug
>into a Disk ][ controller; such a tweek shouldn't be necessary.  The device
>driver should do right thing and make its functionality available to the
>application.

If you look in DOS 3.3, the formatting code took up almost half of the RWTS
subroutines (the semi-equivalent of the Disk ][ driver).  ProDOS is pushing
its boundaries already; if they had included the formatting code it would
have spilled over into main memory (or required 128k to run) long since...

>-- 
>Paul Sander        (408) 734-9822  | If you must describe both quantity and
>paul@Atherton.COM                  | quality of someone else's code, try
>{decwrl,pyramid,sun}!athertn!paul  | "awful lot."

- John

-- 
_______________________________________________________________________________
      Chumley@Bazaar.Deva.COM           | 
-aka- EARLSJ@AFAL-Edwards.AF.MIL        | If two wrongs don't make a right,
-aka- jearls@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU        | try three...