Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!apple!mattd
From: mattd@Apple.COM (Matt Deatherage)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Hmmm.
Summary: P8 hasn't changed that much
Message-ID: <28604@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 8 Apr 89 01:56:15 GMT
References: <8904070949.aa23025@SMOKE.BRL.MIL>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 52

In article <8904070949.aa23025@SMOKE.BRL.MIL> SELLSWORTH@HMCVAX.BITNET ("Scott, part time fuzzy") writes:
>  I am using a CMS 60m drive.  Most of my boot time is spent waiting for the
>damn thing to get up to speed.  Usually not a problem, but IF I am booting a
>GS/OS disk, I **must** have the critter on line.  I believe one of the first
>things that GS/OS does is poll all of the devices to see which ones are really
>out there.
>
After drivers are loaded, the Device Manager tries to generate drivers for
all firmware that didn't get a loaded driver.  This is what enables all
ProDOS devices to work with GS/OS, even without loaded drivers.  Currently,
it sends a ProDOS STATUS call to the drive, and builds a DIB for the device
only if it responds that it's actually there.  If it responds otherwise, no
DIB is built.  (This is also what causes the Sider Multi-OS ROMs to have some
GS/OS problems - the card won't return a good STATUS until someone has done
a READ to it.)

>  What really bothers me is that P8 used to be an effective, working prodos
>file.  Formerly, one could boot straight into P8 without need of anything else.
>Kind of nice to have the capability.  Does anyone out there know if it is still
>possible to make a 3.5 inch, booting disk with only a PROdos file, sans ANY
>startup files that poll all devices?
>
This is still possible; I boot into P8 1.7 all the time on my IIe, on both
3.5" and 5.25" disks, and I did just what you did:  took P8 from /SYSTEM.DISK/
SYSTEM/P8, renamed it PRODOS and put it in the root level of a floppy disk
with BASIC.SYSTEM.  If this is failing, the problem is somewhere else; doing
this is still quite valid.  I was pretty heavily involved with P8 1.6  and 1.7,
and I assure you nothing that major changed in those releases.  The last major
change to the P8 file was the addition of PFI code for AppleShare in 1.5 (*and
later*, of course, but this shouldn't be in memory at all unless you have an
Apple II WorkStation card in your IIe).

>  I am going to give it another look-see sometime soon.  Also, does this mean
>that a 5.25, 140K floppy needs _all_ of the gs/os files on it to run programs
>that require basic.system?  I _must_ have forgotten a vital file or two
>somewhere.
>
No no no no no.  It's something else that's messing things up.

>                                     Scott
>                                     SELLSWORTH@HMCVAX
>                                     sellswor@jarthur.claremont.edu

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