Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!apple!claris!drc
From: drc@claris.com (Dennis Cohen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re^2: Hard drive woes
Message-ID: <10401@claris.com>
Date: 18 Jul 89 14:11:03 GMT
References: <8367@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> <8400137@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Organization: Claris Corporation, Santa Clara CA
Lines: 27

gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>I thought the only limit imposed by the finder is on the number of
>icons.  Is this limit 2200?  What happens when you run out of icons?
>What happens when you run out of files?

The limitation isn't imposed by the Finder, but rather by the Resource
Manager and it isn't (exactly) on the number of icons.  It has to do with the
number of distinct resources that may exist in a single file and it is
2727 (cf Tech Note 141).  This limit affects the Finder and icons as follows.
Each application/file which has its bundle bit set gets resource entries in
the DeskTop file for its BNDL, FREF, and ICN# resources (and possibly an
entry in the APPL list).  The icons for individual files are drawn by the
Finder based upon the creator of the file based upon a lookup into the
DeskTop file.  Thus, you could have 10000 MacWrite II documents on your
hard disk without any problem (other than knowing what was where).  On the
other hand, you probably couldn't have as many as six hundred applications
with distinct creator signatures as you would most likely have run out of
space in the DeskTop file for the resources.  This is part of the reason for
the DeskTop Manager that is used on AppleShare (and may, coincidentally, be
used on local hard disks) -- it gets around the limitations of the DeskTop
file and its interaction with the Resource Manager.

-- 
Dennis Cohen
Claris Corp.
------------
Disclaimer:  Any opinions expressed above are _MINE_!