>> Use of #4010 allows DOS to be hardware independent. But then sector numbers
>> are limited to 16 bit. How to solve this? With drivers?
>What problem do you mean?
>In general #4010 is only called by DOS kernel. In all other cases when
>your own program makes use of #4010, you know what size the disk you want
>to access has. So if it is >32MB, use the 'new diskio' otherwise use
>#4010.
Of course, #4010 is used by DOS kernel; then what happens when DOS needs
access to 32 bit sectors for accessing files? We have the same problem:
#4010 entry supports 16 bit sectors only! Also, direct sector access
routines available in DOS, finally must use #4010, and same for a "new
diskio". So: in an hypothetical new DOS, let's forget #4010 and use a
drivers system?
>Like some people said before; 24bit sectornumber will be enough to fit all
our
>needs for the coming decades ;-) (8GB partitions)
You can't never have 8GB partitions with FAT16. This is due to limit in
cluster size: remember that number of sectors per cluster must be power of
2, so maximum is 128 sectors = 64K x 65536 FAT entries = 4Gb (for some
reason, in MS-DOS maximum cluster size is 64 sectors instead of 128, so
maximum partition size is 2Gb). So, for a FAT16 system, the use of 32 bits
for sector numbers instead of 24 has no sense. Anyway, using 32 bits we
avoid compatibility problems when developping hypothetical further new
systems, say FAT32 for example.
>any gain of speed is welcome
Yes but don't exagerate! 8-)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Konami Man - AKA Nestor Soriano (^ ^)v - Itsumo MSX user
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bay/9797/msx.htm
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ICQ#: 18281450
"In Windows 98, 3.000 found failures of W95 have been corrected..."
Translation: 3.000.000 not found failures continue without being corrected...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
****
MSX Mailinglist. To unsubscribe, send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put
in the body (not subject) "unsubscribe msx [EMAIL PROTECTED]" (without the
quotes :-) Problems? contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] (www.stack.nl/~wiebe/mailinglist/)
****
