[Coco] a quick question

Willard Goosey goosey at virgo.sdc.org
Fri Dec 28 03:53:39 EST 2007


On Thu, Dec 27, 2007 at 11:57:07AM -0600, Roger Taylor wrote:

> Yep, Disk BASIC snatches 9 sectors at a time (a granule) no matter 
> how small the file is or if only 1 byte past (9*256, 2304 bytes) 
> causes a whole new granule to be allocated.

It is obnoxiously large.  But on the other hand, at least the granules
don't cross track boundries.  I've got a CP/M machine that uses 18
sectors per track, 4 sectors per group (granule), and let me tell you,
it is annoying to deal with when I'm doing sector-by-sector stuff.

Another advantage of the large granules is that the granule numbers
are small.  Still, they could have used a 3-sector granule, which
wouldn't overlap tracks and would still fit in a 8-bit granule number
(192 granules on a 35-track disk).

Willard
-- 
Willard Goosey  goosey at sdc.org
Socorro, New Mexico, USA
"I've never been to Contempt!  Isn't that somewhere in New Mexico?"
   --- Yacko



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