Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!ksand
From: ksand@Apple.COM (Kent Sandvik)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.aux
Subject: Re: A/UX gripe
Message-ID: <12555@goofy.Apple.COM>
Date: 16 Mar 91 22:03:16 GMT
References: <1991Mar15.224133.7433@nas.nasa.gov> <1991Mar16.014644.14808@neon.Stanford.EDU>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA
Lines: 57

In article <1991Mar16.014644.14808@neon.Stanford.EDU> kaufman@neon.Stanford.EDU (Marc T. Kaufman) writes:
>Some comments on multiple HFS partitions:

>->Well, the trick with patching _HFSDispatch in order to fake multiple
>->HFS volumes on one single volume has always been a hack, and thus
>->is not suppored by neither A/UX or MacOS.

>I was not aware that patching _HFSDispatch was required if the partitions
>were "TRUE" (IM-V) apple partitions.  All that is required is a driver that
>is aware enough to read the partition map and create multiple volume entries.

Sorry about that comment, I had a vague memory about talking about this
with other DTS engineers, and I was wrong. It's true that you only need
to register the information about a new partition during startup.
Errare humanum est - especially with the current work load.

>You don't have to know the magic SCSI commands to set up partitions on a
>disk.  You only have to know GetCapacity, Read, and Write.  There is no
>reason HD Setup could not set up partitions on a disk formatted (and driven)
>by other software.

This is true for setting up partitions on the disk. But note, this is 
not true if the hard disk drive has some SCSI command features that
the A/UX kernel won't accept, and thus you can't even mount that partition.

This was the point I tried to make with HD Setup, it's really hard
to figure out what SCSI functionality the other end has, and *disable*
it, or make it to work with A/UX; for instance because the kernel does sanity
checks on odd calls, and don't accept them at all.

>>Come on folks at Apple. ONE OF AN OPERATING SYSTEM'S MAIN FUNCTIONS IS TO
>>EFFICIENTLY MANAGE FILES AND FILE STRUCTURES. UNIX is very popular because
>>over twenty years ago the people at Bell Labs realized this and wrote
>>an operating system with this in mind. Because of this foresight UNIX
>>is a very expandable OS. We run it here at NASA on supercomputers and
>>mass storage systems (with the ability to handle over a terabyte of data!)
>>I read in MacWeek all the great things System 7.0 will provide the MacOS
>>community (hot links, etc.), but I haven't read anything on improvements
>>to the MacOS file system. Even modifying HS Setup to allow multiple HFS
>>Partitions per physical device would be a help. But no - it seems Apple is
>>intent on putting on several layers of frosting before they have finished baking
>>the cake.
>
>Moved and seconded.

Same here! Not that I don't dislike HFS, it's a clever scheme as well, and
sometime I hope that the UNIX people would realize the idea behind 
multiple resource forks built into the file system :-). Or even better,
forget the whole idea of a physical files and treat the whole structure
as one database unit, that contains various data structures, TEXT one of them.

Regards,
Kent Sandvik

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