using RAD: as memory

[hamtronix]

While I have been waiting for my HD to show up to get my system working again I have been messing about and I discovered something (it's new to me anyway).

When I mount the RAD: device it shows up on the WB as a regular ol' 880k drive icon. I can copy things into it but they do not survive a warm boot.

When I use DMS to create a disk image to it the icon changes to look like a disk was inserted and acts like a disk. With the exception that it retains the data on a warm boot.

Since I am operating on one floppy this is extremely useful (I forgot the amount of swapping!) My question is;

Can I change the regular RAM disk to retain files like the RAD: disk?

Can I increase the size of the RAD: disk and still retain the files? This would allow me to muck about much quicker and would be extremely useful. I have 40 MB of Fast memory so it isnt a problem.

Why does RAD: only retain files when it thinks it is a regular disk and not when it is just plain ol' RAD:

I suppose I can create many RAD: disks.

[Piru]

Can I change the regular RAM disk to retain files like the RAD: disk?

No.

Can I increase the size of the RAD: disk and still retain the files?

Yes. Check the RAD icon tooltypes (highcyl). The default is 79, which gives you 880KB. So 1 cyl is 11KB. Thus for example to get roughly 2MB RAD, you would use highcyl of 2048/11 = 186.

Why does RAD: only retain files when it thinks it is a regular disk and not when it is just plain ol' RAD:

It should always retain the files, regardless of how you use it.

I suppose I can create many RAD: disks.

Correct. Just use unique unit for each.

[hamtronix]

Thanks for the information. I just copied my WB 3.1 to the RAD: now I warm boot into WB at ~ 5 seconds (some slow up due to RAM on accelerator / caches...)

Wow, this is great a virtual HD...

I wonder why RAM: cannot be told to retain like this? Is it some deep hard coded software issue or some thing to do with how MOUNT works?

[Piru]

I wonder why RAM: cannot be told to retain like this? Is it some deep hard coded software issue or some thing to do with how MOUNT works?

RAD is specially coded to retain the contents, RAM is not.

However, you can look into replacements, such as statram.

[hamtronix]

thanks for the quick responses.

I just tried to use the regular format command to get my 2MB RAD: HD up and it tanked my system. Is there a special command or other program I should use to format a non-standard size?

[Piru]

I just tried to use the regular format command to get my 2MB RAD: HD up and it tanked my system.

That sounds more like problem with your system. Bad memory or something.

Is there a special command or other program I should use to format a non-standard size?

No. Any size is equally standard.

Ah, and BTW: You don't need to format RAD, just initialize the filesystem. "Format DRIVE RAD: Name Foo FFS QUICK" should do the job.

[orange]

hm, could you use other filesystems like PFS or SFS as well?
would there be any advanage?

except for fast warm reboots (which happen not-so-often here) is there some other uses of spending RAM on RAD?

[Piru]

hm, could you use other filesystems like PFS or SFS as well?

Yes.

would there be any advanage?

Very little.

except for fast warm reboots (which happen not-so-often here) is there some other uses of spending RAM on RAD?

Well, back when I only had A500 with two floppy drives, I used to have SAS/C main disk on RAD: ... includes on one floppy, and 2nd was the project disk ;-)

[hamtronix]

on my current one floppy system it is a godsend to not have to swap and to try out programs without screwing things up and having to reboot from floppy and swap swap swap...

It gives me an incredibly fast booting system on top of it.

[SamuraiCrow]

Just one comment:  Depending on your accelerator or memory card, not all Fast RAM holds the kicktag support.  You may be eating up Chip RAM with your RAD: device.

[hamtronix]

SamuraiCrow wrote:
Just one comment:  Depending on your accelerator or memory card, not all Fast RAM holds the kicktag support.  You may be eating up Chip RAM with your RAD: device.

Luckily the Derringer allows me to map everything to its own Fast RAM so it actually gives me more Chip RAM. Right now I have 990,520 Chip RAM free. Which seems extremely acceptable to me.

[pault1]

The RAD: disk changed a couple of times historically or I may be thinking of the ASDG creation of a similar name.  When I got my A1000 expanded to a whole 2.5 MB of RAM, no HD, I mounted a floppy sized RAD: then my startup-sequence consisted of Diskcopy df0: rad: then rebooting.  IIRC it would look for the RAD:, find it, skip the floppy, and have a 5 second reboot cycle until you powered down the machine or something crashed hard enough to wipe things out.  If you set Diskcopy to its fastest mode (I think it was NOVERIFY) it still, with the diskcopy then reboot, booted way faster than a total boot from floppy the first time, and of course TONS faster on subsequent boots.

The advantage to the diskcopy was that you could copy an image of the boot floppy as fast as the drive could step tracks.  If the RAD: was not 1 floppy exactly then this would not work.  Nowadays if you needed to use a floppy, I'd copy maybe 2 disks of material to a floppy by using something like DMS, then stream + expand it to whatever size RAD: you wanted, then reboot to set all assigns to the new system location. :idea:

[hamtronix]

Thats real automation!

I do it the old fashion way. I have modified my backup of the WB 3.1 disk with the progs for my accelerator and 2 RAD: disks. Then boot with that to WB. And just drag the WB DF0: to the proper RAD: drive. I let it diskcopy and then reboot.