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From: boblu@tekgen.BV.TEK.COM (Robert Luneski)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Max of 113 files in a subdirectory: fact or fiction?
Message-ID: <7169@tekgen.BV.TEK.COM>
Date: 10 Jan 91 20:46:35 GMT
References: <10472@lanl.gov> <1991Jan08.061722.26635@convex.com> <1991Jan8.153539.19118@wam.umd.edu> <1991Jan09.010526.15973@convex.com> <1991Jan9.090428.29529@wam.umd.edu> <1991Jan09.215647.5890@convex.com> <1991Jan10.084308.13614@wam.umd.edu>
Reply-To: boblu@tekgen.BV.TEK.COM (Robert Luneski)
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.
Lines: 36

In article <1991Jan10.084308.13614@wam.umd.edu> dmb%wam.umd.edu@uunet.uu.net (David M. Baggett) writes:
>In article <1991Jan09.215647.5890@convex.com> rosenkra@convex.com (William Rosencranz) writes:
>>
>>In article <1991Jan9.090428.29529@wam.umd.edu> dmb%wam.umd.edu@uunet.uu.net (David M. Baggett) writes:
>>>It's DOS (and therefore, for compatibility, TOS) that has the file 
>>>limit restriction.  Only 113 files in a FAT.  Or is it 112?  In any
>>>case, don't ask me why.
>
>>i thought this restriction was only for the root directory of a disk,
>>not subdirectories. but my memory, as usual, is fuzzy, and i have no
>>way right now of verifying this. i know u can have more than 113 files
>>in a hd partition, though i can't be sure if u can have more than
>>113 files in total on a floppy, even if they are in directories. easy
>>enuf to test, however.
>

The limitation of 112 files is restricted to the number of files in the
root directory of a floppy disk. The root directory of an ST floppy typically
occupies 7 sectors and each directory entry takes 32 bytes so 7*512/32 = 112
maximum number of directory entries.  The root directory of hard disks
typically occupy 16 sectors yeilding a maximum of 256 root directory entries.
These numbers could be increased or decreased with a custom formatter but
are usually sufficient for most users.  

There is no restriction(subject of course to the available disk space) to the 
number directory entries in a subdirectory.  However, some TOS versions can
only display and access from the desktop(or file selector) a limited number
of files.  The additional files are really there and can be accessed 
normally through shells such as Gulam or Neodesk which allows you to augment
TOS's limited display capability.

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/\/\/\    Bob Luneski                                                   /\/\/\
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