Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!mouse
From: mouse@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu (der Mouse)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Need RAM disk driver code (BSD4.3 or NeXT)
Message-ID: <1991May24.104429.2981@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu>
Date: 24 May 91 10:44:29 GMT
References: <9105200434.AA19778@well.sf.ca.us>
Organization: McGill Research Centre for Intelligent Machines
Lines: 30

In article <9105200434.AA19778@well.sf.ca.us>, squeegee@well.UUCP (Stephen C. Gilardi) writes:

> I am in search of RAM disk driver example code for BSD4.3.  [...]  I
> have a NeXT computer with no floppy drive.

Well, a NeXT is not 4.3; it's Mach with a 4.3 compatability layer
slapped on.  (It's a reasonably good layer at the syscall level, but
it's a long way from 4.3 in terms of real use - full flamage available
by mail.)  I don't know for sure what their driver internals look like,
but a quick look at a couple of include files makes it look as though
their driver interface isn't too far from the Berkeley one.  Just
beware that a driver that works on 4.3 will not necessarily plug&play.

> [...stuff on floppy...Mac IIci A/UX can read them...can get data file
> on NeXT with floppy contents on it...]  I'd like to be able to
> somehow mount that image as (perhaps) a read only block device.

A RAMdisk would solve this problem, yes.  But you don't really need it.
The filesystem format is really not complicated.  If the floppy
filesystem format is the normal Berkeley filesystem format, I have
programs I wrote that I can send you that are capable of reading stuff
off of it, given the disk contents, even in a file.

Don't you just love binary distributions? :-(

					der Mouse

			old: mcgill-vision!mouse
			new: mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu