Mail Archives: opendos/1997/02/12/00:40:10
On Tue, 11 Feb 1997 mharris AT blackwidow DOT saultc DOT on DOT ca wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Feb 1997, Colin W. Glenn wrote:
> > about we call it INTEND?
> Ok, sounds fair. I don't understand the logic behind it though.
> You could just make the kernel smart enough to detect what
> > An application which uses INT 21h 44h 0Dh 60h and the drive is properly
!TYPO! Translate drive to driver.
> > constructed to utilize command code 1 will cause a fault and should
> > generate an error when you change disks. Do this, start a batch file on a
> Well, COMMAND.COM doesn't contain the filesystem code, the kernel
> code does, but yes, the kernel does detect disk changes. What
> If this is the case then automounting any FS is possible as long
> as the kernel can understand what FS is on the disk to begin
> I'm don't fully understand your idea behind this "INTEND"
> program. Can you explain it to me in more detail? Is it
> something that remembers a magic string or something for each
> disk that you have? Then when you want to use the disk it
> prompts you to insert it?
>
> IE: INTEND SPECIAL_FLOPPY1 C:\FLOPPY1
>
> Now you've got a different floppy in the A: drive, and your CWD
> is C:\ and you type CD FLOPPY1, and get a message saying "Please
> insert SPECIAL_FLOPPY1? Is this your intention? If it is, then
> it's probably possible, although I doubt it would be very useful.
> At least I cant see any immediate uses for it.
Creates a 'fake' dir visible in the root, when you UNINTEND it removes the
fake dir so you won't see it anymore.
And I don't mean to apply this to just floppies, we now have 100+meg
removable media drives now, not to mention ramcards and the like. Lets
say you have a file which contains an address book and scheduling calander
contained on it, you could do the following: (in say AUTOEXEC.BAT)
INTEND Schedule_Card C:\SCHEDULE
SYMLINK C:\SCHEDULE C:\CALANDER
As long as you just _read_ the information in the CALANDER DIR, no errors
are reported, it's when you run your scheduling software and write the
updated schedule to its file that the symlink and intend come into play,
the system sees it as a mirror, it'll prompt you to insert the
Schedule_Card, (if you hadn't done so already), and update that file as
well. Hey, cool, you are reminded to keep all copies square even though
one doesn't really reside permanently on the hard drive.
> > As far as I know, _any_ disk reserves the first sector for the media
> > information, if not a volume label, then a serial number.
> Yes, I'm sure that every disk contains a serial number too, but
> what I'm curious about is HOW to detect a particular filesystem's
> Do you know how to do it? I'm going to create a bunch of
> floppies tonight with different filesystems on them (in Linux)
Do a bunch in sequence under one system and see which bytes change.
> Sure! Why not? Even though I don't have a tape unit, I can see
> that as a GREAT benifit to those that do.
Well, it would be a GREAT asset, the OS can natively read the tape, no
special software to run, no different commands to remember, just type:
COPY *.* TAPE:\volumename\*.* /AA-
ie, copy all files with the archive attribute set and reset the bit.
How easy this would make backups! Could even throw in /S to search all
subdirectories as well.
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