Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!usc!apple!portal!cup.portal.com!thad
From: thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: QuarterBack Tools - any info on it?
Message-ID: <35991@cup.portal.com>
Date: 16 Nov 90 08:04:27 GMT
References: <9654@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 58

rolee@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Profess'nal Agitator)
in <9654@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> writes:

	B.A.D. has two defrag options, one for WB and one for CLI.  Does the
	QB optimizer have this same "feature" or not?  According to the B.A.D.
	manual, AmigaDOS is written so that the two formats of WB vs. CLI have
	different file structures.  Thus, it would seem as if it is only
	possible to optimize for one environment or the other.  This is what
	B.A.D. says and I'm curious about the validity of that statement.

Dunno 'bout QB Tools' optimizer yet (just ordered it, though I noticed the
local dealer, HT Electronics, has it already in stock today), but as I demo'd
at a FAUG meeting last year using Leo Schwab's "fm" program (see below), what
B.A.D. does is "optimize" the placement of either the *.info files (for WB use)
or the user-directory/file-header blocks (for CLI use).  The optimization puts
one or the other items contiguously on one sector(s) so that they can all be
read with minimal disk-drive head motion.

B.A.D.'s optimization is quite effective, and everyone in the audience got
a good laugh when I displayed (using "fm") the file layout of a "stock"
Workbench 1.3 disk from Commodore, then showed the optimizations performed
by B.A.D., and THEN booted using the "stock" and the B.A.D.'ed disk ... the
difference was like night and day (favoring the B.A.D.'ed disk).

Now, as for the "fm" program, here's the original info (yeah, this goes back
a long while, and even Leo was surprised that anyone even remembered the
program; it's my philosophy that I'd rather have something and not need it
than to need something and not have it ... which is why I archive literally
everything onto more than 5,000 floppies and over 1GB HD); in any event:

	From: ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab)
	Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
	Subject: fm.c (File Map Utility)
	Date: 17 Sep 86 05:09:36 GMT
	Reply-To: ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab)
	Organization: Whole Earth Lectronic Link, Sausalito CA
	Lines: 943
	Keywords: file, disk, sector, map, cardboard
	Summary: Pretty neat, if I do say so myself.

	This little toy is designed to allow you to examine the sector
	allocation on your disks.  Instead of using the DOS to find files, it
	uses the trackdisk.device and examines the sectors directly,
	traversing the filesystem "by hand."

And it can also be found on Fish Disk #36.

Which brings me to a rambling comment concerning some archives sites removing
"old" Fish Disks ... DON'T.  Some of the MOST valuable code examples for the
Amiga can be found on early Fish Disks (i.e. #5).  The program I cited above
is on Fish Disk #36, and just yesterday I referred someone to Fish Disk #79
for the source to Chuck McManis' "INFO" clone.  Just because something may
have been written 4, 5 or 6 years ago does NOT make it obsolete ... in fact,
some of the early programs were so good that no-one has been able to improve
upon them.  Even most of the early Usenet Amiga discussions from mid-1985 are
still valuable today (which is why I've kept those archives all these years).

Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]