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From: jhs@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.micro.atari8
Subject: Re: Ramdisk file
Message-ID: <8609241820.AA06420@mitre-bedford.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 24-Sep-86 14:30:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: mitre-be.8609241820.AA06420
Posted: Wed Sep 24 14:30:51 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 24-Sep-86 22:15:59 EDT
References: <5787@ut-sally.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The MITRE Corp., Bedford, MA
Lines: 42

Joe:

It is possible to do but for some reason programs that already do just what
you want are not routinely supplied along with the RAMdisk handler programs.
If you have a load file that installs a RAMdisk, you can make it autoboot by
renaming it AUTORUN.SYS, as I am sure you know.  If you then want to make your
BBS autoboot, you will probably want to initialize the RAMdisk so its
directory is correct.  Not all the RAMdisk installation programs do that.
However, a short Assembly language program can be written that will do it.
(Or, you could write such a program in some other language and compile it, as
long as it produces a standard L-loadable program file as the end result.)
This can be appended to the existing RAMdisk program by using the DOS Copy (C)
command with the /A option:

C <RETURN> INITPROG, AUTORUN.SYS/A <RETURN>
	      ^
     (RAMdisk init prog)

This will tack the initialization program on the end of the AUTORUN.SYS
file and it will be run as soon as the RAMdisk installation program finishes.
Then the same trick

C <RETURN> BBSPROG AUTORUN.SYS/A
	      ^
       (your BBS prog)

will tack on your BBS program (assuming it is an L-loadable file and not a
BASIC program).  The AUTORUN.SYS file will get bigger and bigger, of course,
as you do this.

If you need to transfer files from the magnetic disk to the RAMdisk after
initializing it, you will need another L-loadable program to copy those files
you need.  A BASIC program to generate the loadable file appeared in COMPUTE!
for September 1986.  Such a file can again be appended using Copy with /A to
Append it,but this should be done before you append the BBS program itself so
it will be executed first.  If all you need is a blank, initialized RAMdisk
for your BBS program to write data on, you can skip this step.

I hope the above is of some help.  Good luck with it.

-John Sangster
jhs@mitre-bedford.arpa