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From: breuel@h-sc1.UUCP (thomas breuel)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: Re: AmigaDos...
Message-ID: <1082@h-sc1.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 30-Apr-86 05:01:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: h-sc1.1082
Posted: Wed Apr 30 05:01:34 1986
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Organization: Harvard Univ. Science Center
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Before getting into a closer, point by point discussion (see next
article), let me re-phrase my questions about AmigaDOS:

-- how can I implement a custom file system? Can I write a
   'File Handler Process' (mentioned in the AmigaDOS Technical
   Reference Manual)? Where is this documented in detail?

-- how can I get fast seeks on a file? I don't require blinding
   speed, but delays in the second range for seeks on long files
   are just unacceptable. One solution, albeit a dirty hack, is
   to re-implement the file handler with sufficient buffering
   in my application. Needless to say that I am reluctant to do this.
   The kind of solution I would hope for is that there is a way
   to instruct the file system handler to buffer larger chunks of
   the block allocation table for a particular file.

   The fact that seeks are extremely slow is also (presumably) the
   reason why Manx ln and ALINK are so slow (but this is just a guess).
   If this problem isn't fixed in future releases of the system,
   I predict that there will be problems with getting database
   applications to work at acceptable speeds on the Amiga.

Any help and pointers to the documentation would be appreciated
(i.e. page references in the technical documentation).

						Thomas.

PS: these are by no means my only questions about AmigaDOS, but they
are, at the moment, the most important ones.