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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!rutgers!dayton!viper!john
From: john@viper.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: HDSCAN (and GEMBOOT.PRG)
Message-ID: <774@viper.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 4-Apr-87 21:12:17 EST
Article-I.D.: viper.774
Posted: Sat Apr  4 21:12:17 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 5-Apr-87 19:43:52 EST
References: <8704040134.AA06662@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Reply-To: john@viper.UUCP (John Stanley)
Distribution: world
Organization: DynaSoft Systems
Lines: 50

In article <8704040134.AA06662@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> K538915@CZHRZU1A.BITNET writes:
 >
 >BTW has anybody besides myself actually tried GEMBOOT.PRG? It works
 >VERY well, but I'm slightly supprised that there seems to be a great
 >lack of enthusiasm about this program. Konrad THANKS A LOT!
 >
 >                            Simon

  Simon,
    I for one have not used the GEMBOOT program for three major reasons...:

  1)  When it was posted, there were no sources given.  This isn't that
unusual, but for something this important along with reason (2), I'll wait
a bit longer before I try it.

  2)  Only one or two people have said anything about it seeming to work.
Since I use my machine on a daily basis for work, I can't afford
experimenting with programs with -potentialy- disasterous side effects.
(NOTE:  I'm -NOT- saying GEMBOOT has -any- problems at-all...!  I'm only
saying that as far as I can tell, there hasn't been enough use for me to
feel safe using it...)

  3rd)  (And the PRIMARY reason) Is that nowhere in the message that came
with the posting -OR- with the archive itself is there -any- explanation
of "What GemBoot Does to the System"....  It says that it potentialy
corrects "some" of the 40-folder problems, but it has -no- details about
how it works or what functional changes are caused by running it in an
AUTO folder...  Until I have a good idea what a program is going to do,
and that includes ANY program not just GemBoot, I'm not likely to take
chances running my own development software on a system which has been
modified in totaly-unspecified ways.
  If GemBoot does work, I see no reason for Konrad to keep the workings
of how it does whaever-it-does a TOTAL secret.  I have no objections
about his keeping the sources to himself, but I'd sure like to have
some idea of what he thinks he's doing to my system before I try it...

---

BTW:  Konrad (sp?), I would be -very- interested in seeing the source
(or at least some data-structures + locations information) for the two
programs you included along with GemBoot.  Those being GEMMEM and GEMDIR.
I have a few system-status indicators I have running on my sytem just
to keep track of things that effect it's performance and the two tables
(memory blocks & directory block cache) would be nice additions...
Any objections to sharing those two with the ST community?

--- 
John Stanley (john@viper.UUCP)
Software Consultant - DynaSoft Systems
UUCP: ...{amdahl,ihnp4,rutgers}!{meccts,dayton}!viper!john