On Mon, 31 Jan 2022, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > File sizes were stored as the last 4 bytes of each DIRectory entry, with a > signed 32 bit number. So, a file could be from > -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647 > Unfortunately, they never successfully finished the implementation, so copying > a negative size file to the drive did not increase the free space. Since they > didn't make THAT work, perhaps they should have used an UNSIGNED 32 bit > number, to permit files up to 4,294,967,295
Consider the file seek operation however: with the file size limited to the 31-bit positive range of the signed 32-bit data type you can move the file offset backwards and forwards through the entire range with a single operation using the same data type. It would not be possible if the data type was unsigned and all the 32 bits used for the file size. Maciej
