From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,c72b93d85d765332 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-05-10 07:15:10 PST Path: newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!skynet.be!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!btnet-peer0!btnet!news5-gui.server.ntli.net!ntli.net!news2-win.server.ntlworld.com.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "chris.danx" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada References: <9de6j9$e1s1@news.kvaerner.com> Subject: Re: Ada and Hardware X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Message-ID: <3jxK6.4356$577.870347@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com> Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 15:10:48 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.252.136.155 X-Complaints-To: abuse@ntlworld.com X-Trace: news2-win.server.ntlworld.com 989503807 62.252.136.155 (Thu, 10 May 2001 15:10:07 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 15:10:07 BST Organization: ntlworld News Service Xref: newsfeed.google.com comp.lang.ada:7473 Date: 2001-05-10T15:10:48+01:00 List-Id: > >Hello folks, > > I'm implementing a program which reads files on a floppy disk which are > not > >stored via the fat12 file system. I know this is the most popular format > but i > >want a simple contigouous fs for the purposes of booting an OS. > > There is a lot of utilities for reading and writing DOS disks. Why change > something which is so standardized? I don't understand FAT12 yet, and it complicates the boot sector. Also the fs can be messed with if it's a fat12 disk easily. I don't want this. Would you want any person coming along and swapping a driver file for another that's got a similar signiture but does malicious things behind the scenes? What's more anyone can come along and delete a critical file easy. Two clicks and OS is gone. > Booting from such a floppy should be well understood since there are at > least two such systems used in conjunction with Linux and the various BSD > varieties. I know how to boot from a floppy for the file system i'm using. It's really easy (just look in 2nd inode to get address of primary kernel file, and calculate offset). I just need to get the files from my FAT hard disk to my BFS floppy. The current driver implements a disk as a file on a HD, and it's really easy to work with. The problem is i need to create a bfs enabled disk, write files to it, read info from it, via an interactive shell. I don't know how to do this in Ada (i can do the shell though). I do know how in C. Chris Campbell