What HPFS _NEEDS_!
Jake Hamby
performance/reliability jump over the old FAT file system, but there's one
BIG thing they need to do in order for it to be useful to anyone IMHO, and
that is that DOS should support it. I mean, why can't IBM add HPFS
support to their own PC DOS 6.3, and then people can put all of their
programs and data on an HPFS partition, and not have to worry about
whether or not they will be in OS/2 or DOS when they go to use them? I
know it'd be a lot of work, and I know that due to DOS's kludginess, it
still wouldn't be able to support long filenames, but if HPFS is so great,
then IBM should make sure that ALL of their OS's can use it, right?
--
===============================================================================
Jake Hamby (fand...@kaiwan.com) Is this signature
PGP key available on finger or keyserv great, or what!
===============================================================================
Sid
The problem is that DOS was never written to support an IFS. It is
my understanding that dos' access of the drive is a direct access of the
hardware. By adding IFS support, they would probably lose support for most
disk managing applications (PCTools, Norton Utilities, etc.). Finally,
probably the largest aspect of the problem goes back to the wonderfull 640K
limit! It is my understanding that the HPFS support system was REDUCED to
about 500K for the OS/2 Performance Beta, this does not leave a lot of room
for a DOS app!
Ryan Fife - Team OS/2
vic...@sage.cc.purdue.edu
* My opinions expressed here are simply that, MY opinions! *
Mark Woolworth
On Jun 26, 1994 you wrote in a message to All:
JH> From what I hear the HPFS file system is a real big
JH> performance/reliability jump over the old FAT file system,
JH> but there's one BIG thing they need to do in order for it to
JH> be useful to anyone IMHO, and that is that DOS should
JH> support it. I mean, why can't IBM add HPFS support to their
JH> own PC DOS 6.3, and then people can put all of their
JH> programs and data on an HPFS partition, and not have to
JH> worry about whether or not they will be in OS/2 or DOS when
JH> they go to use them? I know it'd be a lot of work, and I
JH> know that due to DOS's kludginess, it still wouldn't be able
JH> to support long filenames, but if HPFS is so great, then IBM
JH> should make sure that ALL of their OS's can use it, right?
HPFS requires 512k of memory PLUS the cache. How much memory do you think DOS
would have left if you loaded that under DOS?
BTW, for what its worth, there are shareware programs out that do supposedly
allow you read/write access to the HPFS partition from DOS. But only in the
registered version. The shareware version will not write to HPFS.
Mark
Thomas Vandahl
|> fand...@kaiwan.com (Jake Hamby) writes:
|>
|> >From what I hear the HPFS file system is a real big
|> >performance/reliability jump over the old FAT file system, but there's one
|> >BIG thing they need to do in order for it to be useful to anyone IMHO, and
|> >that is that DOS should support it. I mean, why can't IBM add HPFS
|> >support to their own PC DOS 6.3, and then people can put all of their
|> >programs and data on an HPFS partition, and not have to worry about
|> >whether or not they will be in OS/2 or DOS when they go to use them? I
|> >know it'd be a lot of work, and I know that due to DOS's kludginess, it
|> >still wouldn't be able to support long filenames, but if HPFS is so great,
|> >then IBM should make sure that ALL of their OS's can use it, right?
|>
|> my understanding that dos' access of the drive is a direct access of the
|> hardware. By adding IFS support, they would probably lose support for most
|> disk managing applications (PCTools, Norton Utilities, etc.). Finally,
|> probably the largest aspect of the problem goes back to the wonderfull 640K
|> limit! It is my understanding that the HPFS support system was REDUCED to
|> about 500K for the OS/2 Performance Beta, this does not leave a lot of room
|> for a DOS app!
I recently got a program caaled ihpfs.exe (should be on ftp.cdrom.com) that
installs a HPFS-partition read-only as a dos-"network-drive". The program is
only 7k in size. I think that it would be difficult to add writing capabilities
to this driver. I would not even want that ill-behaved DOS-programs have
write access to my HPFS-partitions (that's, among others, one reason I use
OS/2).
--
===============================================================================
Thomas Vandahl Technical University of Ilmenau
[Team OS/2] P.O. Box 327
Disclaimer: "But that's just me." D-98684 Ilmenau
eMail: Thomas....@E-Technik.TU-Ilmenau.DE Germany
===============================================================================
Robert L Maynard
While there *ARE* DOS programs at ftp.cdrom.com that read & write HPFS
files the biggest problem is legal and financial :
MICROSOFT !
M$ developed the original HPFS while they were partnered with IBM for
OS/2 1.2. M$ OWNS the rights to HPFS. IBM would have to pay a royalty
to M$ for every copy of PC-DOS that included HPFS code.
BTW the memory usage in HPFS is for keeping the B+-tree tables that hold
HPFS file information *IN MEMORY*. Just reading from and writing to
HPFS partitions does NOT require that the whole tables be in memory.
Bob
Thomas_Ingolf Seeling
> >that is that DOS should support it. I mean, why can't IBM add HPFS
> >support to their own PC DOS 6.3, and then people [...]
> The problem is that DOS was never written to support an IFS. It is
This is quite wrong. In Dos 4, support was added for installable
file system drivers through a line "ifs=..." in config.sys. This
keyword remained there until 5.0, perhaps even 6.x, but not documented.
The programmer's reference for 4.0x told that there is an additional
sdk available with full docs. This one never came out, afaik.
> hardware. By adding IFS support, they would probably lose support for most
> disk managing applications (PCTools, Norton Utilities, etc.). Finally,
ridiculous. who cares for such programs? hpfs is nearly self-maintaining
and does hardly need additional user maintenance which in my opinion leads
to very bad results if used by the wrong people.
> limit! It is my understanding that the HPFS support system was REDUCED to
> about 500K for the OS/2 Performance Beta, this does not leave a lot of room
> for a DOS app!
who cares? why not put all this in XMS? Which computer comes with less than
4 MB nowadays? If someone wants to use hpfs professionally it's not hard and
expensive to achieve a memory upgrade.
But indeed: hpfs support for dos would be quite nice :-)
--
Tschau...Thomas
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Thomas Seeling, Augasse 24, 61194 Niddatal, +49-6034-2588
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Sid
>Hello,
>Sid (vic...@sage.cc.purdue.edu) wrote:
> > fand...@kaiwan.com (Jake Hamby) writes:
> > >that is that DOS should support it. I mean, why can't IBM add HPFS
> > >support to their own PC DOS 6.3, and then people [...]
> > The problem is that DOS was never written to support an IFS. It is
>This is quite wrong. In Dos 4, support was added for installable
>file system drivers through a line "ifs=..." in config.sys. This [...]
Ok, so I was wrong in that respect.
> > hardware. By adding IFS support, they would probably lose support for most
> > disk managing applications (PCTools, Norton Utilities, etc.). Finally,
>ridiculous. who cares for such programs? hpfs is nearly self-maintaining
>and does hardly need additional user maintenance which in my opinion leads
>to very bad results if used by the wrong people.
I agree that these programs are not needed with HPFS, but about 6 months or so
ago there was a big thread with people concerned about it. I used to be a NU
addict...then I switched to OS/2.
Mark Woolworth
On Jun 28, 1994 you wrote in a message to Mark Woolworth:
JH>> From what I hear the HPFS file system is a real big
JH>> performance/reliability jump over the old FAT file system,
JH>> but there's one BIG thing they need to do in order for it to
JH>> be useful to anyone IMHO, and that is that DOS should
JH>> support it. I mean, why can't IBM add HPFS support to their
JH>> own PC DOS 6.3, and then people can put all of their
MW> HPFS requires 512k of memory PLUS the cache. How much memory do
MW> you think DOS would have left if you loaded that under DOS?
MW> BTW, for what its worth, there are shareware programs out that do
MW> supposedly allow you read/write access to the HPFS partition from
MW> DOS. But only in the registered version. The shareware version
MW> will not write to HPFS.
JM> your 512k require that you stated is what is highly
JM> believed amoungs the os/2 community however it is false...
JM> THE basic requirements are 200-300k of RAM, plus the
JM> CACHE....
JM> this is accourding to the readme in the
JM> latest DCF/2
And Max Eidswick should know. I got the 512k figure from some IBM documentation
somewhere years ago. I never have bothered to play around and verify the number
myself, as all of my partitions are HPFS, and taking HPFS out would cost me the
access to my entire system. :(
Mark
Steve Wardell
FROM : [may...@selway.umt.edu]
TO : [All]
ABOUT : [Re: What HPFS _NEEDS_!]
DATE : [06-29-1994]
m> M$ developed the original HPFS while they were partnered with IBM
m> for OS/2 1.2. M$ OWNS the rights to HPFS. IBM would have to pay a
m> royalty to M$ for every copy of PC-DOS that included HPFS code.
But didn't IBM pay Microsoft $500 Million for OS/2... so IBM OWNS OS/2
and the ONLY part of OS/2 that IBM must pay royalties to Microsoft on
is Win-OS/2 (so nothing in the For Windows version).. so since they
don't pay for using HPFS in OS/2.. and they OWN OS/2.. why couldn't
they use HPFS in PC-DOS for free?
Steve
[Team OS/2]
* KWQ/2 1.2e NR * I still think that Arafat and Ringo are the same guy...
---------
Fidonet: Steve Wardell 1:109/347
Internet: Steve....@f347.n109.z1.fidonet.org
Robert L Maynard
Steve Wardell <Steve....@f347.n109.z1.fidonet.org> wrote:
> -=[ QUOTiNG ]=-
>FROM : [may...@selway.umt.edu]
>TO : [All]
>ABOUT : [Re: What HPFS _NEEDS_!]
>DATE : [06-29-1994]
>
>m> M$ developed the original HPFS while they were partnered with IBM
>m> for OS/2 1.2. M$ OWNS the rights to HPFS. IBM would have to pay a
>m> royalty to M$ for every copy of PC-DOS that included HPFS code.
>
>But didn't IBM pay Microsoft $500 Million for OS/2... so IBM OWNS OS/2
>and the ONLY part of OS/2 that IBM must pay royalties to Microsoft on
>is Win-OS/2 (so nothing in the For Windows version).. so since they
>don't pay for using HPFS in OS/2.. and they OWN OS/2.. why couldn't
>they use HPFS in PC-DOS for free?
>
>Steve
>[Team OS/2]
>
>
Remember the problems that IBM had getting developers tools out the door
after the IBM/M$ rift ? How most of the problems were due to M$ being
"sticky" about device driver stuff AND M$ rights to HPFS ?
I'm NOT sure of the exact details, but I *DO* remember HPFS and
device drivers being the two biggest sticking points.
Bob
Byron Huang
MW> And Max Eidswick should know. I got the 512k figure from some
MW> IBM documentation somewhere years ago. I never have bothered to
MW> play around and verify the number myself, as all of my
MW> partitions are HPFS, and taking HPFS out would cost me the
MW> access to my entire system. :(
Well, I guess you read the OS/2 2.1 Performance Tuning for End Users (aka
Performance White Paper).
Here's the extract from it, but I can't interpret it either. 100 or 500k?
===
The FAT file system is preferable because it uses less disk space to manage the
files and directories. The FAT file system is always active in OS/2 (HPFS does
not handle diskettes). HPFS is started by the statement:
IFS=C:\OS2\SYSTEM\HPFS.IFS /c:64
in the CONFIG.SYS. *If a system does not need HPFS, removing this line reduces
memory requirements by 100 KB when not accessed, and approximately 500 KB when
accessed.* If memory is constrained, this will help improve overall system
performance. If the system is not overcommitted, removal of this option will
not improve performance. If any partition size is large ( >100 MB ), HPFS
should be used for function as well as performance.
===
Within the '* *' is our answer. But I don't really understand what it's
actually saying. What is 'not accessed' and what's 'accessed? HPFS?
* Byron Huang (speaking for myself usually) * byron.huang%oc...@csah.com *
* Singapore OS/2 User Group * OS/2 advocate * TeamOS/2 * Fido: 6:600/218 *
Mr. Neat-O [tm]
>
>[...] *If a system does not need HPFS, removing this line reduces
>memory requirements by 100 KB when not accessed, and approximately 500 KB when
>
> Within the '* *' is our answer. But I don't really understand what it's
>actually saying. What is 'not accessed' and what's 'accessed? HPFS?
It would seem to indicate that merely loading the HPFS.IFS driver takes
about 100k of memory. However, if you access any HPFS partition, then the
memory requirement jumps to 500k. Thus, if you have an all FAT system, you
can remove the HPFS.IFS line and save 100k. If you convert an already HPFS
system to all FAT, then you save 500k.
+---------< Eric A. Rasmussen - Mr. Neat-O (tm) >---------+ +< Email Address >+
| A real engineer never reads the instructions first. | | e...@wpi.wpi.edu |
| (They figure out how it works by playing with it.) | | ear%w...@wpi.edu |
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