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From: LMLARS01@ULKYVX.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: (none)
Message-ID: <8611192224.AA09960@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Wed, 19-Nov-86 13:27:00 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8611192224.AA09960
Posted: Wed Nov 19 13:27:00 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 20-Nov-86 02:19:59 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: University of Louisville
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Steve,

Here are some approximate answers to your questions.  I don't program
much with BASIC, so there may be better ways than what I suggest below.

(1) First of all, the volume /RAM in ProDOS is a little shorter than 64K=
128 blocks because half of the 80 column text page, and a few other
things make use of the alternate memory bank.

(2) No, there is no "COPY" command in ProDOS, but there are many
public domain programs which add such a command to ProDOS.  I can
send you one, if you can't find one locally.  My standard boot-up
EXEC file makes use of such a program to copy a bunch of utilities
onto the AE RAMdisk in the //e.

(3) >I could write a program which reads the text file into an array and
>then writes it to the ram disk file but that seems very inefficient.
>Any ideas?

Here's another way.  BLOAD the file into a safe memory range and then
BSAVE it as a Ttype file to /RAM.  This is quite fast.  (Of course,
a COPY command can do this too.)


(4) >In a BASIC program, can you have two files open at once? One for
>reading from and the other for writing to? I tried it but as soon
>as the program came down to my input statement (which it was supposed
>to get from the input file), I was prompted at the screen with a "?".

The number of files you can have open in ProDOS is essentially limited
only by memory.  Each open file has a 1K buffer associated with it.
It sounds to me like your problem is that you didn't issue the READ
command right before your GET or INPUT statement.  Remember that ProDOS
commands sort of cancel each other.  A READ cancels a subsequent WRITE
and vice-versa.  Both are killed by any other ProDOS command.

                                               Lee
                                               LMLARS01@ULKYVX.BITNET