ProDOS, 8 Drives per Slot...

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ProDOS, 8 Drives per Slot...

From what I can see, ProDOS now supports 8 drives/volumes per slot without remapping. How precisely would I set up more than four volumes on (e.g.) a SCSI device, when the Apple II SCSI utils only support two drives (four on a //gs in slot 5)?

 

Does this also mean that I coul daisy-chain four 3.5 drives and four 5.25 drives?

 

How precisely would I set up a system to support this? It isn't very thouroughly explained. 

 

While I don't have a specific need to do it, I ind it fascinating that after all this time, someone has finally broken the prior drive/slot limit. 

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See if this helps.

https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/2758/how-does-prodos-allow-for-multiple-volumes-to-exist-on-a-single-device

 

It might be what I"m looking for too.   Trying the booti and smartport settings. I think that was it was. but for cpm.

 

Thanks,

 

Josh

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NovellNetware wrote:https:/
NovellNetware wrote:

https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/2758/how-does-prodos-allow-for-multiple-volumes-to-exist-on-a-single-device

 

It might be what I"m looking for too.   Trying the booti and smartport settings. I think that was it was. but for cpm.

 

Thanks,

 

Josh

I'm aware of how the mapping normally works.

 

ProDOS 2.5 now seems to allow 8 volumes per slot, without remapping, and I am curious how that functions, because as far as I am aware, you cannot partition say, a SCSI device, to have 8 parts, on one slot with the normal SCSI tools. While ProDOS supposedly now supports doing that, I don't know how to accomplish it. 

 

I'm also unsure if this would carry oer to ProDOS-16 at all, as GS/OS would similarly need to know how to map and access those volumes. 

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ProDOS internal structures

ProDOS internal structures only has space for 2 drives per slot in the device driver table.Slot 5 is a special case where ProDOS will map drive 3 and 4 of a block device to a dummy driver assigned to slot 2 in the table.

 

The Booti unlike all other block devices or hard drive emulators does a little software magic to trick ProDOS into supporting 8 devices in block mode.

 

ProDOS 2.5 has been extended how compatible it is with older software and hardware is anyones guess.

 

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