29 Mar
2005
29 Mar
'05
8:52 a.m.
How about using a later version of DOS, and having it masquerade
as 3.3 if need be? The version being reported to a program by the
OS can be changed on an individual program basis for compatibility
purpose, so you might remove the 512 file limit without too much
hassles. I beleive MS DOS 5 and up have this facility. I certainly
remember using it for some AT&T STARLAN drivers way back...
Michel Adam
micheladam at theedge dot ca
----- Original Message -----
From: Vintage Computer Festival <vcf at siconic.com>
Date: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 8:22 am
Subject: Re: Obscure DOS question
On Mon, 28 Mar 2005, Jim Leonard wrote:
It's definitely 512 on DOS 3.3.
So yes,
all, like:
Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
> MS-DOS 3.3 has a limit of 512 entries in the root directory.
I have a
need to
put more than this.
I seem to remember that the limit is actually 224. > Another question:
>
> When using the SUBST command in MS-DOS, you cannot aparently
substitute>
> the C: drive. I seem to recall that MS-DOS 6.0
allowed this, although I
> might be confusing that with the ability of
LANtastic to
redirect the C:
drive to
a network drive.
Checking 6.22 right here... works fine (I did "subst d: c:\"). you can.
Hmm, cool.
> At any rate, what I'm trying to do is
overcome the limit of
512 file
entries
in an MS-DOS 3.3 root directory.
SUBST won't help you do this unless you don't use a floppy at
subst a: c:\temp
...which works fine.
I'm not using floppies at all. This is with hard disks.
My question is: Why?
I'm restoring files from VHS backup tapes. The files were all
originallystored and backed up from the root directory. On the
tapes I used to test
my process, none had more than 512 files archived. The backup
softwareonly restores *to the same exact drive and path* that the
files were
archived from (in this case C:\). I'm running into some tapes
that have
more than 512 files backed up frm the root directory. These were done
back in the 1980s. I can't figure out how they did it, but there they
are.
Once a backup is made, you cannot add to the backup, so that's not how
they did it.
Anyway, what I am trying to do so that we don't have to make two
runs on
each tape (each tape takes 2 hours to dump) is to re-map the C:
drive to a
directory so that we can overcome the 512 entry limit.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage
Computer Festival
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