Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cucstud!tfd!uupsi!rodan.acs.syr.edu!demarsee
From: demarsee@gamera.cns.syr.EDU (Darryl E. Marsee)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Mac Classic question
Message-ID: <DEMARSEE.90Dec5150534@gamera.cns.syr.EDU>
Date: 5 Dec 90 20:00:47 GMT
References: <48129@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
	<1990Dec2.093816.26712@world.std.com>
	<1990Dec4.193225.16330@DMI.USherb.CA>
Organization: Syracuse University
Lines: 20
In-reply-to: mazu@terre.DMI.USherb.CA's message of 4 Dec 90 19:32:25 GMT

>   What about this scenario:  you power-up your (diskless) Mac, it boots
>   from its ROM disk, establishes a connection with an AppleShare
>   server (running ApleShare version 3 (or 4 :-)) where your real system 
>   folder is (with all its inits, fonts, ...).  Then it becomes a bit less
>   obvious...  The Mac does a "pseudo-reboot" with the remote system
>   folder, loading all the inits, cdevs, ... and (after a few minutes)
>   you're up and running!

    Would be nice if the ROM disk included something like two current
    utilities: INITShare and RamDisk+, and stored their configuration
    data in PRAM much like the ROM AppleShare client does.  Then, the
    ROM disk could boot up, mount the AppleShare server, invoke the
    INITShare to execute whatever INITs are out on the server, then
    invoke RamDisk+ to copy a System Folder off of the server to a
    RAM Disk and then switch to run off the RAM disk.  This works fine
    today if you boot off of a locked floppy, so doing it off of a ROM
    disk is just a matter of getting the right utilities in ROM and
    being able to store/retrieve the config data from PRAM.