Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!netcom!avery
From: avery@netcom.UUCP (Avery Colter)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Suggestion re. System.Disk --> /RAM5
Summary: Use an 8-bit program, much less grief, and no forks to blast.
Keywords: WHY USE GS/OS FOR PLEBIAN COPYING JOBS?
Message-ID: <11788@netcom.UUCP>
Date: 10 Aug 90 22:35:02 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: NetCom- The Bay Area's Public Access Unix System {408 241-9760 guest}
Lines: 90

A while ago, some people were posting about problems associated with
loading the SYSTEM.DISK into /RAM5 with GS/OS, citing that the shutdown
operation in the Finder tended to go haywire.

Now, I hope that since these postings arose, someone has had the good
sense to post the suggestion I am about to make.

But I have this sneaking feeling I am about to hear the sound of many hands
slapping their associated foreheads.

The obvious solution is: DON'T USE THE FINDER!

DON'T USE ANY PROGRAM HAVING ANYTHING REMOTELY TO DO WITH GS/OS.

You don't need to use the Finder to load the System.Disk into /RAM5.

You don't even need a 16 bit program.

The copying of the System.Disk into /RAM5 can be done with any program
around which can image-copy.

The ProDOS command COPY from the PRO.COMMANDS package will do the job nicely.

Or, you can pack the entire system disk with ShrinkIt, and then, at any old
whim, de-ShrinkIt the file into /RAM5.

Or, you can use any version of Copy II Plus.

Or probably most of those cute little copy programs you acquired from
friends back in high school. You know, the ones with names like
"KrackerJack, by Captain Ahab,
 Moby Slick BBS, located somewhere in northwestern Pennsylvania...."

All of these methods will get the bit image of the System.Disk into /RAM5.

WITHOUT USING GS/OS.

Which means, we can act as if we were still on 8-bit Apple IIs, and not
have to give a shit about warm-starting!

After all, what resource forks are in danger of being corrupted in 
the middle of 8-bit mode?

So, load your SYSTEM.DISK from any 8-bit method you like best,

set the control panel to boot from /RAMDISK.

Press Control-OA-Reset.

The hardware could give a shit what O/S you were in when you hit the
warm start combo.

It just cares what the control panel says.

If the CP says boot from /RAM5, it'll boot from /RAM5.

If the contents are the SYSTEM.DISK, then it'll run the GS/OS startup.

My favorite way of accomplishing all this, since it would take less disk
space, would be to have my main disk boot into Copy II Plus v 9.0, from
which I can duck into ShrinkIt. (If you don't have Copy II 9, make
ShrinkIt itself the primary SYS file on a ProDOS 8 disk) Unshrink the
GS.OS.SHK archive containing a compressed form of your SYSTEM.DISK into
/RAM5. Change the boot slot in the Control Panel, and warm-start out of
ShrinkIt. ShrinkIt won't be insulted in the least.

One wonderful outgrowth of doing it like this, is that you can actually
put an SHK file of SYSTEM.DISK on an 800K disk whose full size in /RAM5
is probably over 1 Meg, which means you can have many of your favorite
DAs, Inits, FSTs, and other cute little disk-hogging demons right at your
disposal in /RAM5 along with the essentials, and all you have to do is
order an unpack into /RAM5 and kick back for 60 seconds.

A wonderful way to both increase speed and beat the 800K ceiling.

P.S. I have a comm program (Readylink) which likes to access it's home
disk quite a lot. Makes it damn near impossible to use with a single drive.
So, I already have designed this method, putting my Readylink files into
a file-list SHK and blasting them up into /RAM5. Then, my 3.5 drive is free
to act as the data disk drive. Works like a charm.

Try getting back to the simple level. Try going back to 8-bit mode while
blasting up your files into /RAM5.

It will save you all this bloody to do with the GS/OS Shutdown.

-- 
Avery Ray Colter    Internet: avery@netcom.uucp   | {apple|claris}!netcom!avery
     o/~ Mama, mama, mama, keep those skinny girls at home,
         o/~ `Cause this skinny boy wants a BIG FAT BLONDE!   - The Rainmakers