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From: walker@sas.UUCP (Doug Walker)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Amiga harware or software project
Message-ID: <1159@sas.UUCP>
Date: 21 Aug 89 15:42:54 GMT
References: <1989Aug16.185509.14229@watcsc.waterloo.edu> <89229.233930UH2@PSUVM>
Reply-To: walker@sas.UUCP (Doug Walker)
Organization: SAS Institute Inc, Cary NC
Lines: 27

More ideas for an Amiga-based student project...

1. Equivalent of SCCS or RCS - does anybody know of one?  Could be implemented
   as an AmigaDOS device.  If you type SCCS:project/file.c you get the latest
   version, or you can qualify it by SCCS:project/file.c/version-specification.
   (syntax is unambiguous since you can't have a file and a directory with the
   same name!)  Could be implemented on top of other AmigaDos devices or could
   take over a floppy drive or hard drive partition.

2. Similar idea - WORM: device.  Virtual Write-Once-Read-Many disk, implemented
   on a series of floppies.  Sequential sector numbers are assigned starting at
   0.  The second floppy's first sector would be #1760 (given 1760 sectors/disk)
   and so forth;  Writing to the device always appends to the end of the
   archive, so you never lose old revisions.  As long as you just write, you 
   only keep the latest disk in the drive.  The directory is kept on any
   AmigaDos device, for example a hard disk or another floppy, or possibly on
   the first diskette of the series (but that might create artificial limits).
   Would be great for BBS archives - sysop types 'COPY WORM:FILENAME FOO' and
   responds to the requestors instead of hunting around looking for the file,
   making sure it's the latest version, etc.  Directory is always recreatable
   by reading the archive BACKWARDS - all new versions contain a pointer to the
   previous version.

I'd love to do either or both of these, but NO TIME!!!  I've got lots of ideas
on implementation details in case you decide to use them :-)

--Doug