Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!BobR
From: BobR@cup.portal.com (Bob BobR Retelle)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: background file transfer
Message-ID: <10333@cup.portal.com>
Date: 22 Oct 88 05:10:38 GMT
References: <8810202018.AA28710@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 24

Gerry Greenberg asked about background file transfers on the ST, and
specifically in relation to the Magic Sac...
 
There is a commercial product called SHADOW, available from ANTIC, which
works quite well on the ST, allowing background file transfers which are
compatible with most other ST programs.  In the current version, you must
allocate a buffer as large as the largest file you expect to download,
because the program does not download directly to disk (you might have
changed disks to run a different application while the d/l proceeds
in the background), but the authors are working on a revision which *will*
allow downloading to disk in the background...

Also, there *is* a Macintosh accessory (called something like "Backgrounder"
I think) which is supposed to do much the same thing, but Serial I/O is one
of the weak spots of the Magic Sac, and I highly doubt that it would work
(although I've never tried it.. it might be worth checking some Mac libraries
to give it a try...)
 
Dave Small has said that his new Spectre-128 Mac emulator has vastly
improved serial I/O handling, so you might want to contact him directly for
more info (he's available on the net at the Well, but I dunno his exact
address... Dave..???)

BobR