Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!oliveb!apple!well!jax
From: jax@well.UUCP (Jack J. Woehr)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: File handling tips
Summary: Try It!
Keywords: BLOCK, files
Message-ID: <11145@well.UUCP>
Date: 28 Mar 89 05:10:22 GMT
References: <37859@vax1.tcd.ie>
Reply-To: jax@well.UUCP (Jack J. Woehr)
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 33

In article <37859@vax1.tcd.ie> trolfs@vax1.tcd.ie (Thomas) writes:
>
>have had to read up on it in books and learn by trial and error. I now feel 
>I have a good understanding of Forth and want to develop my system so I can 
>do some serious programing.
>
> One of the things I'm not happy with is the disk operations. My disk drives
>are slow and INDEXing takes forever. What I want to do is develop file
>handling primitives and directory(s) structuring (ie not have to INDEX).
>
> Maybe someone out there has some ideas about this. 
>
> I would be gratefully for any tips as I have too many ideas and they're 
>probably bad.
>
	Probably NOT bad, Thomas. Try anything. That is what Forth is
for ... it's your personal language, once you are done extending the dictionary.

	One idea is to reserve a few screens on each disk for some kind of
directory structure.  On my TRS-80 I always used to load certain extensions
to the system that enabled me to access machine readable directory information 
which allowed me to load source by program names. Try anything once, if you
are unhappy, erase the disk!

	For more ideas, check back issues of FORTH Dimensions magazine. You ARE a FIG member, aren't you? :-)

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{} JAX on GEnie       ." Tell them JAX sent you!"             Coordinator {}
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