Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!xanth!nic.MR.NET!shamash!rosevax!ems!pwcs!stag!daemon
From: to_stdnet@stag.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: NULLFILL
Message-ID: <679@stag.UUCP>
Date: 19 Dec 88 21:12:03 GMT
Sender: daemon@stag.UUCP
Lines: 66

From: dynasoft!john@stag.UUCP (John Stanley)

[U46050@UICVM.BITNET (JOHN ZAFIRIS) writes...]

> For those of you following the NULLFILL vs. FATSPEED saga:  The
> incompatibility can be avoided by using DISKFREE (by Tim Purves of
> Michtron) instead of FATSPEED.  DISKFREE seems to do things more
> 'legally'...   whatever that means.
>                                                   ...John

  WRONG!!!

  While all three speed up the system, they are three totaly(!) seperate
programs with very(!) different capabilities...  DISKFREE has its own
share of bugs and problems...

To try and clear things up:

  NULLFILL:

	Cute hack that shorts out the main memory-clear loop in the bios. 
	Really(!) speeds loading programs if your software can take the
	strain (drastic change in environment)....

	Problems:  Most programs expect that memory to be cleared.  May
	cause disasterous and/or subtile problems without any warning.

  DISKFREE:

	Good program to speed up any program that uses the Dfree call in
	gemdos.  Its -only- purpose, to prevent the long pauses while the
	system tries to figure out how much free space is left on a hard
	disk.

	Problems:  Not accurate.  You will find different values listed
	for the amount of free space on some disks with and without
	DISKFREE installed.  Can (very rare) cause 64k of memory to be
	lost out of your available memory on installation.

  FATSPEED:

	Replaces part of the gemdos fat scanning routine which looks for
	free clusters for saving new file data.  Very effective at
	removing the longer and longer delays saving files as your hard
	disk gets more and more full...  Also includes redirection fix and
	DISKFREE style fix.

	Problems:  Not the most legal program I've ever seen, but I
	haven't had any problems I can trace directly to using it...  May
	not be installable on some new TOS versions, but it tells you if
	that's the case...  Also, you shouldn't need it (or any of the
	other three programs) after TOS 1.4 is released...


  If you want a repacement for DISKFREE that -is- accurate, drop me a
email message.  I wrote DSKFREE2 that fixes the accuracy problem and is
much cleaner in how it installs itself.  On the other hand, I don't use it
much anymore because I'm now using FATSPEED most of the time...

--
PS:  Please(!) note that my Reply-To address gets munged by the gateway
I'm currently using for news access so you can't just <r>eply to this
article and have your message get to me.  Please use the address below.

---
John Stanley (dynasoft!john@stag.UUCP)
Software Consultant / Dynasoft Systems