Date : Thu, 08 Jan 2004 23:43:34 +0000
From : Mike Tomlinson <mike@...>
Subject: Re: IDE Interface for BBC
In article <4c6dc3b168info@...>, Sprow <info@...> writes
>Not quite true, the patent refers to the method of storing long filenames in
>a backward compatible way.
That's a /patent/ pertaining to FAT, not the /license/.
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/fat.asp
Microsoft intends to charge a license fee for any product formatting
its' data in the FAT filesystem. I see it as a two pronged attack - to
create trouble for the free unix community, which has written open-
source FAT filesystem code, and to try and wring some money out of the
increasing number of manufacturers producing storage devices using FAT
(cf. USB pen drives, CF cards, etc.)
> FAT itself (rather, the method of using a linked
>list bitmap to describe where a file is scattered) wasn't the first of its
>kind.
Well, /you/ know that, /I/ know that. It probably originated in CP/M,
was implemented in QDOS, which M$ bought and turned into MS-DOS in 1980
or thereabouts for the IBM PC. But try telling M$'s lawyers that!
>In article <blah>
> Chris Thornley <C.J.Thornley@...> wrote:
>
>> Page size has always been a problem wish say my BBC B the shift form E00
>> to 1900 for DFS cause people to try to use allsorts or tricks to get
>> tape games to run. Few people used ADFS in the earlier days especially
>> in schools and it only really took of for Archimedes.
>
>Excellent point. It would be *definitely* worthwhile popping 8k of SRAM on
>the IDE interface?
How d' you mean? Write the FS in 8k with 8k SRAM for the filesystem
buffers and working space? As much as I like it, could ADFS be done in
8k? With both HD and floppy support?
MRM produced an E00 DFS on a carrier board with an 8k ROM and 4k RAM
chip for the B with 8271 controller. It was quite Acorn compatible; one
difference was that only 4 random-access files could be opened at once,
as opposed to 5 for Acorn. The DFS works quite happily in a 16k
Sideways RAM slot, by the way.
Mike