... how do you copy in/out from HFS disks?

[John Gilmore]

In article <991 at usfvax2.EDU>, pollock at usfvax2.EDU (Wayne Pollock) writes:
> How can an AU/X application use a file (say a TEXT file) created under
> the Mac OS (i.e., HFS)?  How can a Mac OS application access a
> file created under AU/X?)

jackie at Apple.COM (Hernan'Jackie' Macapanpan) wrote:
> [a load of bull]

The simple answer is that an A/UX program cannot access files on an HFS
disk or partition.  Ditto, a MacOS program cannot access files on a
Unix disk or partition.

The more complicated answer is that you can run MacOS programs under
A/UX if they follow all the rules.  In this case they will access Unix
files *as if* they were HFS files; this is what Jackie's "5 pound bag"
was about.  Apple should really put someone on this newsgroup who can
do more than read the [wrong part of the] manuals and quote them to you.
(Admittedly, reasonable people have posted, but Jackie's misinformation
seems to be the default.  Maybe Apple doesn't realize how bad this makes
them look on the net?)

But there is still no way to access *real* HFS files.  In fact, to move
a MacOS program into A/UX so you can run it, you have to take down
A/UX, format a floppy as "MFS" (the cutesy user interface doesn't call
it that, and I forget how you do it.  Maybe click on "single sided" or
something?), copy it onto the MFS floppy using the Finder, reboot A/UX,
and use a little utility called "mfs" to move it to a Unix file!

If you have a network (Ethernet, not that slow AppleWalk stuff -- which
A/UX doesn't support anyway) then you can run the publicly-available-in-
source&binary NCSA Telnet program under the MacOS, and move files to
and from HFS disks onto a Unix system on your network.  Then boot A/UX
and rcp or remote-mount to get the files from the other Unix machine
onto your A/UX file system.

Wayne again:
> I really need to know what kind of hard disk to buy with the Mac II! Do I
> need to buy two hard disks, one for AU/X and one for HFS?  Are certain brands
> of hard disks recommended/discouraged?  Whats the bottom line here?

Jackie again:
>    So, a second drive wouldn't hurt. Ofcourse, I recommend Apple hard drives.
> Apple hard drives have been tested throughly under A/UX. I've heard that others
> have used non-Apple drives with success but the installation process may not
> be trivial.

The drives that A/UX ships on are Quantum 80MB drives.  Apple sells
them for $2799 retail.  We bought the exact same disk in better
packaging for $1400 from Jasmine in San Francisco.  Works great -- in
fact, the A/UX beta testers were told to buy a Jasmine drive and then
ship it to Apple to get A/UX copied onto it.  Note the cool 100% markup
if you buy it from Apple...

We are also running A/UX on a 300MB CDC Wren-4.  It works fine but the
utilities supplied with A/UX for managing the partition tables are sad
at best.  It took us a night or two of decoding the doc and trying things
before we could copy our A/UX 80MB disk onto the Wren and create a few more
partitions to play in.  I think this is the "non trivial" part Jackie
mentioned.
-- 
John Gilmore  {sun,pacbell,uunet,pyramid,ihnp4}!hoptoad!gnu        gnu at toad.com
"Use the Source, Luke...."