                                Big-DOS


Copyright  1995 by Rainer Seitel

Big-DOS is freeware. For details and the content of this package refer to 
bigdos.txt!


Big-DOS is an ISO 9293 filesystem that replaces the GEMDOS of TOS (not MagiC!). 
It works with up to 32 MS-DOS partitions with 512-byte sectors up to 2 Gbyte. 
That means also MS-DOS partitions greater than 32 Mbyte with more than 65535 
sectors. The count of sektors per cluster, as since GEMDOS 0.15 in TOS 1.04), 
doesn't matter. With the ACSI and IDE interface only 1 Mbyte harddiscs can be 
accessed.

Big-DOS tries to lock a removeble cartridge using XHDI.

DOSMODE.TOS shows and alter the legal characters for filenames on each drive:
GEMDOS: A..Z0..9!#$%&'()-@^_`{}~"+,;<=>[]| and capital umlaute
ISO:    A..Z0..9_
MS-DOS: A..Z0..9!#$%&'()-@^_`{}~ and capital umlaute
If a program try to create a file or directory with an illegal character, it 
gets EACCDN (-36).

To install Big-DOS, put it before Meta-DOS and MiNT in your AUTO folder. For 
MS-DOS partitions of more than 32 Mbyte, you also need a harddisc driver which 
can handle MS-DOS partitions type 6 and allows access to more than 65535 
sectors via Rwabs(). Big-DOS tries to change the XHDI DOS limits.

For Atari's AHDI 6.061 a binary diff is included (you need `Binary Patch' from 
Robert Federle). AHDI.PRG and BINPATCH.TTP should be in the directory of 
Big-DOS. Then start BINPATCH.TTP with the parameter `ahdi6061.bdf'. If you 
dont boot with AHDI, you can copy AHDIBIGD.PRG to your AUTO-Folder for 
testing. If you boot AHDI, you have to rename SHDRIVER.SYS on your boot 
partition and then copy AHDIBIGD.PRG to the root directory and rename it to 
SHDRIVER.SYS. If you dont use Big-DOS further, you have to remove the patched 
AHDI, to avoid that too big partitions were offered to TOS! You have been 
warned!


Application, which manipulate the memory management using undocumented 
variables, won't work.

There are several Programs that initialize the filesystem not correct. By the 
first access or after a media change, an error message is printed on the 
screen. If you type J or Y for yes the correct value will be written on disc. 
Contact the responsible programmer and tell him about the bug.

 BigDOS: FAT start of A: shall be media, $FF, $FF [$FF]! Write? [JYN]
 BigDOS: Media byte in FAT of  A: is $00, shall be $00! Write? [JYN]
 BigDOS: Media byte in boot sector of A: is $00, shall be $00! Write? [JYN]


XHDITEST.TTP shows for a given drive letter the partition size, the XHDI 
version of the harddisc driver and tests the DOS-limits function.
:-(  not available
:-/  available, but could not change the limits
:-)  available and could change the limits


e-mail:
MausNet:  Rainer Seitel @ KA
Internet: Rainer_Seitel@ka.maus.de (prefered, no mail > 16 Kbyte per day!)
          Rainer.Seitel@stud.uni-karlsruhe.de

Source of supply:
MAUS Karlsruhe, +49 721 358887, 2400-28800 bps, 07:00Z/17:00 and 20:00Z/02:00
http://wwwrzstud.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de/~ujo7/bigdos.html
(http://129.13.95.1/~ujo7/bigdos.html)
