Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!haven!udel!mmdf From: postmaster@att-in.att.com Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: (none) Message-ID: <8407@nigel.udel.EDU> Date: 16 Jan 90 19:55:27 GMT Sender: mmdf@udel.EDU Lines: 24 Mail to `att.att.com!attmail!mhs!envoy!ics.test/pn=_test_group' alias `att!attmail!mhs!envoy!ics.test/pn=_test_group' from 'VM1.NoDak.EDU!INFO-MINIX%UDEL.EDU' failed. The error message was: destination unknown or forwarding disallowed The message began: Received: from NDSUVM1.BITNET by VM1.NoDak.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 2609; Tue, 16 Jan 90 00:24:12 CST Received: from NDSUVM1.BITNET by NDSUVM1.BITNET (Mailer R2.03B) with BSMTP id 2591; Tue, 16 Jan 90 00:24:10 CST Date: Tue, 16 Jan 90 02:24:01 GMT Reply-To: INFO-MINIX%UDEL.EDU@VM1.NoDak.EDU Sender: Minix operating system Comments: Warning -- original Sender: tag was info-minix-request@UDEL.EDU From: Heather Subject: Re: disk geometry, was Re: 3.5" disks, PS/2 model 50Z Comments: To: info-minix@udel.edu To: Multiple recipients of list MINIX-L What sort of header does a tar file have? Do we want to maintain compatability with other tar programs? If this is not important, there is an easy solution to the bootblock problem: make the tar header look like a bootblock. I don't have the bootblock structure in front of me, but it seems to me that we could put in all the important stuff, like disk size/geometry, any flags the rom bootstrap expects to see, and the rest holds tar information (whatever that happens to be). This means that in a 360k disk, the first 512 bytes are necessarily wasted, but I think It is worth it.