Re: BASIC OS for the PC

From: smf <smf_at_null.net>
Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 17:38:07 +0000
Message-ID: <15eee1d7-fad4-81c0-8f5d-2544fe4367ac@null.net>
On 20/12/2016 15:05, David Wood wrote:
> Another method would be to maintain a BAM as well as a linked list on a
> per-file basis.  This would be helpful in that sparse files could be
> possible, which would be great when dealing with random access;  the middle
> of a file won't have to be created to place a record near the end, and the
> whole file wouldn't even need to be allocated.

I think you could do sparse files with FAT easier by just using a magic 
entry in the list for "no space allocated yet".

I think it's better to keep it compatible though, because as soon as you 
try to improve things there will be 100 things you'd want to do better 
which would probably blow your code size budget & you won't be 
compatible with anything.

FAT and BASIC also have history...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table#Original_8-bit_FAT

I had thought about porting http://www.pagetable.com/?p=48 to UEFI, 
which would serve a similar(ish) purpose to this.


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Received on 2016-12-20 18:00:02

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