gfretwell@aol.com wrote on 2/1/24 3:48 am:

<Snip>

> (no hard drives in those days)
O.K., must have been later in the DOS series where I had whatever DOS
installed on a 10MB Hard drive ..... on which I then ran "Double Space"
(was it??) to give myself 20MB.

*HUGE* !!
--
Daniel

gfretwell@aol.com wrote on 2/1/24 3:42 am:

<Snip>

> This all runs in DOS.
> IBM had so many DOS tools that I resisted Windows or OS2 until I was
> forced into it by software that would only run under Windows.
>
Likewise, I used DOS (up to Ver 6.0) until Win98 came out .... then I
unstalled Win95!!
--
Daniel

Daniel65 <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
> gfretwell@aol.com wrote on 2/1/24 3:48 am:
>
> <Snip>
>
> > (no hard drives in those days)
> O.K., must have been later in the DOS series where I had whatever DOS
> installed on a 10MB Hard drive ..... on which I then ran "Double Space"
> (was it??) to give myself 20MB.

It was DriveSpace (or SuperStor or Stacker). IIRC, I used them all, or
at least two of them.

> *HUGE* !!

Mine was even *HUGER*, 40MB. Way too much, so I divided it into two
partitions! [1]

OTOH, I started with hard drives (drum drives) of 340KB (yes, *K*B),
costing $23,500 (in 1969 dollars). That to beat *that*! :-)

2757A etc.
<http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=548>

[1] Not quite the reason. Real reason: 32MB maximum partition size and I
didn't want to use software to overcome that limit.

Frank Slootweg wrote on 3/1/24 2:30 am:
> Daniel65 <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
>> gfretwell@aol.com wrote on 2/1/24 3:48 am:
>>
>> <Snip>
>>
>>> (no hard drives in those days)
>> O.K., must have been later in the DOS series where I had whatever
>> DOS installed on a 10MB Hard drive ..... on which I then ran
>> "Double Space" (was it??) to give myself 20MB.
>
> It was DriveSpace (or SuperStor or Stacker). IIRC, I used them all,
> or at least two of them.
>
>> *HUGE* !!
>
> Mine was even *HUGER*, 40MB. Way too much, so I divided it into two
> partitions! [1]
>
> OTOH, I started with hard drives (drum drives) of 340KB (yes, *K*B),
> costing $23,500 (in 1969 dollars). That to beat *that*! :-)
>
> 2757A etc. <http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=548>
>
> [1] Not quite the reason. Real reason: 32MB maximum partition size
> and I didn't want to use software to overcome that limit.
>

"costing $23,500 (in 1969 dollars)"!!!! WOW!! Frank, can you lend me a
buck or two?? ;-P
--
Daniel

On 2 Jan 2024 15:30:28 GMT, Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>
wrote:

>Daniel65 <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
>> gfretwell@aol.com wrote on 2/1/24 3:48 am:
>>
>> <Snip>
>>
>> > (no hard drives in those days)
>> O.K., must have been later in the DOS series where I had whatever DOS
>> installed on a 10MB Hard drive ..... on which I then ran "Double Space"
>> (was it??) to give myself 20MB.

> It was DriveSpace (or SuperStor or Stacker). IIRC, I used them all, or
>at least two of them.

DoubleSpace was also an option. It's what DriveSpace was initially
known as when it released with MS-DOS 6.0. After Microsoft lost a
court case showing that they had infringed upon Stacker's patent,
DoubleSpace was first removed, and then later replaced with
DriveSpace.

There were a number of alternatives during that era, as increase in
software sizes briefly exceeded the speed at which hard-drives were
growing in size. I personally recall DiskDoubler (although that was
for Mac) and DoubleDisk (no relation), but it seemed like there were
dozens being advertised in the magazines of the time. Given the
(legitimate) concerns about data corruption - even amongst the leading
brands - most of them slipped under the waves almost as quickly.

I've memories of using Stacker. At the time, it didn't have a way to
compress your files in place, so I first had to copy all my files OFF
the hard-drive to make enough room for its virtual disk file. But I
didn't trust the software enough to give it my whole drive, so I split
the difference and left half the drive uncompressed. The uncompressed
drive got my 'important' files, while I used the compressed drive for
games and other nonsense.

The performance hit wasn't severe, but noticable on my PC. Eventually
I replaced the kludge with a second hard-drive and felt much more
secure about everything.

On 1/3/2024 4:15 AM, Daniel65 wrote:
> Frank Slootweg wrote on 3/1/24 2:30 am:
>> Daniel65 <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
>>> gfretwell@aol.com wrote on 2/1/24 3:48 am:
>>>
>>> <Snip>
>>>
>>>> (no hard drives in those days)
>>> O.K., must have been later in the DOS series where I had whatever
>>> DOS installed on a 10MB Hard drive ..... on which I then ran
>>> "Double Space" (was it??) to give myself 20MB.
>>
>> It was DriveSpace (or SuperStor or Stacker). IIRC, I used them all,
>> or at least two of them.
>>
>>> *HUGE* !!
>>
>> Mine was even *HUGER*, 40MB. Way too much, so I divided it into two partitions! [1]
>>
>> OTOH, I started with hard drives (drum drives) of 340KB (yes, *K*B), costing $23,500 (in 1969 dollars). That to beat *that*! :-)
>>
>> 2757A etc. <http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=548>
>>
>> [1] Not quite the reason. Real reason: 32MB maximum partition size
>> and I didn't want to use software to overcome that limit.
>>
>
> "costing $23,500 (in 1969 dollars)"!!!! WOW!! Frank, can you lend me a buck or two?? ;-P

That's probably at work.

We had a mainframe hard drive, the size of a Maytag washer, connected to
our 128KB PC design. That had 30x the storage of an ST412, which came
along three years later. The interface connection used diff ribbon cables
without outer shields. If I believe Wiki, the storage rates back then
were on the order of 1.2MB/sec. We had no HDTune, so it wasn't like I could
sit around all day measuring it :-) Anything faster than a floppy diskette
was considered "high tech" back then. You did not complain about this stuff.
Progress was progress.

The "hard drive" used 230V power and had a 2 horsepower motor for the spindle.
It used 10-platter disc packs in cake boxes. Load a pack, unscrew the lid, close
the washing machine cover. Push the "Purge" button, and about ten minutes later,
the drive was ready, then you'd push a button to bring it online. I don't
think we booted off that. Might have booted off a... floppy. The most
common component you could count on, was our 8" floppy drive(s).

Some of our peripherals were relatively expensive. We also had a mainframe
tape drive connected.

*******

We worked on 14", 8", and 5.25" FH storage. The 14" storage was the
first to deliver results, and having a large disk provided a place
for the software team to stage their development tree. I tested a few
8" hard drives in the lab, but they weren't total winners, and
at some point, I guess someone saw the advert for the ST412 and
that doomed the 8" lab project. I think maybe three 8" drives escaped
into release machines. And then when the ST412s showed up, they
were "finally personal computers". My desk drawer had 110 of the
8" floppy diskettes stored in it, and the ST412 came at just the right time.

We didn't have limits where I worked. Oh, I kid :-) Our 300MB storage
was one partition. You called into it with an LBA, the controller
(our design) converted to CHS type commands for the drive. The signal
came off the drive as a serial stream, and the controller did SIPO.
we had our own file systems.

You needed a hex editor and a sense of humor to work there.

Like, one of the jobs I was given, I was placed in a foreign lab, with a mix
of big-endian and little-endian computers, and my job was to
put "byte-swaps" in the right places, so they could all read the
network packets properly. Must have taken me a week to get that
shitty mess running. Hex editor for the win. And a sense of humor.
For some reason, one of the machines needed *two* byte swaps. But
you don't argue with computers. If it says it wants it that way, you
just do it, and move on. I don't really know how that works today,
when say, you connect some Apple computer, to a PC. It's a good thing
someone figured that out.

Paul

Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
> On 1/3/2024 4:15 AM, Daniel65 wrote:
> > Frank Slootweg wrote on 3/1/24 2:30 am:
> >> Daniel65 <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
> >>> gfretwell@aol.com wrote on 2/1/24 3:48 am:
> >>>
> >>> <Snip>
> >>>
> >>>> (no hard drives in those days)
> >>> O.K., must have been later in the DOS series where I had whatever
> >>> DOS installed on a 10MB Hard drive ..... on which I then ran
> >>> "Double Space" (was it??) to give myself 20MB.
> >>
> >> It was DriveSpace (or SuperStor or Stacker). IIRC, I used them all,
> >> or at least two of them.
> >>
> >>> *HUGE* !!
> >>
> >> Mine was even *HUGER*, 40MB. Way too much, so I divided it into two partitions! [1]
> >>
> >> OTOH, I started with hard drives (drum drives) of 340KB (yes, *K*B), costing $23,500 (in 1969 dollars). That to beat *that*! :-)
> >>
> >> 2757A etc. <http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=548>
> >>
> >> [1] Not quite the reason. Real reason: 32MB maximum partition size
> >> and I didn't want to use software to overcome that limit.
> >>
> >
> > "costing $23,500 (in 1969 dollars)"!!!! WOW!! Frank, can you lend me a buck or two?? ;-P
>
> That's probably at work.

Yes, we sold/supported the things (and the systems).

> We had a mainframe hard drive, the size of a Maytag washer, connected to
> our 128KB PC design. That had 30x the storage of an ST412, which came
> along three years later. The interface connection used diff ribbon cables
> without outer shields. If I believe Wiki, the storage rates back then
> were on the order of 1.2MB/sec. We had no HDTune, so it wasn't like I could
> sit around all day measuring it :-) Anything faster than a floppy diskette
> was considered "high tech" back then. You did not complain about this stuff.
> Progress was progress.
>
> The "hard drive" used 230V power and had a 2 horsepower motor for the
> spindle. It used 10-platter disc packs in cake boxes. Load a pack,
> unscrew the lid, close the washing machine cover. Push the "Purge"
> button, and about ten minutes later, the drive was ready, then you'd
> push a button to bring it online.

Probably somithing similar to 'our':

'HP 7920/7925 Disc Drives'
<http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=272>

and

'HP 13394A/13356A Disc Packs for 7920/7925'
<http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=417>

[...]

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2 Jan 2024 15:30:28 GMT, Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>
> wrote:
>
> >Daniel65 <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
> >> gfretwell@aol.com wrote on 2/1/24 3:48 am:
> >>
> >> <Snip>
> >>
> >> > (no hard drives in those days)
> >> O.K., must have been later in the DOS series where I had whatever DOS
> >> installed on a 10MB Hard drive ..... on which I then ran "Double Space"
> >> (was it??) to give myself 20MB.
>
> > It was DriveSpace (or SuperStor or Stacker). IIRC, I used them all, or
> >at least two of them.
>
> DoubleSpace was also an option. It's what DriveSpace was initially
> known as when it released with MS-DOS 6.0. After Microsoft lost a
> court case showing that they had infringed upon Stacker's patent,
> DoubleSpace was first removed, and then later replaced with
> DriveSpace.

Thanks for the update/correction! Now you mention it, I remember the
controversy, the Stac court case, etc.. The events are clearly explained
in Wikipedia, especially the transition from MS-DOS 6.2 (DoubleSpace),
to MS-DOS 6.21 (without DoubleSpace) to MS-DOS 6.22 (DriveSpace).

'DriveSpace'
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DriveSpace>

'Later versions'
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DriveSpace#Later_versions>

So Daniel was correct after all. Sorry about that, Daniel.

> There were a number of alternatives during that era, as increase in
> software sizes briefly exceeded the speed at which hard-drives were
> growing in size. I personally recall DiskDoubler (although that was
> for Mac) and DoubleDisk (no relation),

The Wikipedia article say that Microsoft's DoubleSpace was based on
technology it licensed from the DoubleDisk deleoper Vertisoft.

> but it seemed like there were
> dozens being advertised in the magazines of the time. Given the
> (legitimate) concerns about data corruption - even amongst the leading
> brands - most of them slipped under the waves almost as quickly.
>
> I've memories of using Stacker. At the time, it didn't have a way to
> compress your files in place, so I first had to copy all my files OFF
> the hard-drive to make enough room for its virtual disk file. But I
> didn't trust the software enough to give it my whole drive, so I split
> the difference and left half the drive uncompressed. The uncompressed
> drive got my 'important' files, while I used the compressed drive for
> games and other nonsense.

I did the same, two partitions with important/non-important stuff.

> The performance hit wasn't severe, but noticable on my PC. Eventually
> I replaced the kludge with a second hard-drive and felt much more
> secure about everything.

While I never had any data corruption problems, it was just too much
of a hassle and I just stopped using whatever disk compression software
I was using (probably SuperStor or Stacker, because I replaced MS-DOS
6.X with DR DOS (6.0?)).

On 2 Jan 2024 15:30:28 GMT, Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>
wrote:

>Daniel65 <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
>> gfretwell@aol.com wrote on 2/1/24 3:48 am:
>>
>> <Snip>
>>
>> > (no hard drives in those days)
>> O.K., must have been later in the DOS series where I had whatever DOS
>> installed on a 10MB Hard drive ..... on which I then ran "Double Space"
>> (was it??) to give myself 20MB.
>
> It was DriveSpace (or SuperStor or Stacker). IIRC, I used them all, or
>at least two of them.
>
>> *HUGE* !!
>
> Mine was even *HUGER*, 40MB. Way too much, so I divided it into two
>partitions! [1]
>
> OTOH, I started with hard drives (drum drives) of 340KB (yes, *K*B),
>costing $23,500 (in 1969 dollars). That to beat *that*! :-)
>
>2757A etc.
><http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=548>
>

Yup I was an IBM brat so our 1311 started at 2 meg per pack in the
early 60s and that went to 7 meg with the 2311 (same basic box, same
pack but higher bit density and SLT logic). Things started going up
from there.

>[1] Not quite the reason. Real reason: 32MB maximum partition size and I
>didn't want to use software to overcome that limit.

There was an IBM internal use only BIOS for the PC/AT that added large
drive support and a few other things. One of my buddies with a ROM
burner was burning them and handing them out to hardware geeks like
me.
I think it was DOS 4 that bumped up that limit with FAT16B. I never
bit on that one but I ran big drives with no problem on 5.0 and 6.3
Once I got SCSI cards in my PCs it seemed the sky was the limit on
available drives (at least a gig anyway and that seemed like more than
anyone would ever need.)
Pretty soon I had several 9404 "shoeboxes" with 857 "Redwings" in them
that I used like big diskettes.

gfretwell@aol.com wrote:
> On 2 Jan 2024 15:30:28 GMT, Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>
> wrote:
>
> >Daniel65 <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
> >> gfretwell@aol.com wrote on 2/1/24 3:48 am:
> >>
> >> <Snip>
> >>
> >> > (no hard drives in those days)
> >> O.K., must have been later in the DOS series where I had whatever DOS
> >> installed on a 10MB Hard drive ..... on which I then ran "Double Space"
> >> (was it??) to give myself 20MB.
> >
> > It was DriveSpace (or SuperStor or Stacker). IIRC, I used them all, or
> >at least two of them.
> >
> >> *HUGE* !!
> >
> > Mine was even *HUGER*, 40MB. Way too much, so I divided it into two
> >partitions! [1]
> >
> > OTOH, I started with hard drives (drum drives) of 340KB (yes, *K*B),
> >costing $23,500 (in 1969 dollars). That to beat *that*! :-)
> >
> >2757A etc.
> ><http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=548>
>
> Yup I was an IBM brat so our 1311 started at 2 meg per pack in the
> early 60s and that went to 7 meg with the 2311 (same basic box, same
> pack but higher bit density and SLT logic). Things started going up
> from there.

Are you sure about that timing (assuming with "meg" you mean a
megabyte, not a megabit)?

As my reference shows, in 1968 the HP 2775A indeed had 1,572,864
(16-bit) words capacity, so ~3MB, but that was *late* 60s.

> >[1] Not quite the reason. Real reason: 32MB maximum partition size and I
> >didn't want to use software to overcome that limit.
>
> There was an IBM internal use only BIOS for the PC/AT that added large
> drive support and a few other things. One of my buddies with a ROM
> burner was burning them and handing them out to hardware geeks like
> me.

My HP QS/16 (16MHz 386DX, 40MB disk) came with software (a driver?) to
go beyond 32MB, but as said, I didn't use it.

> I think it was DOS 4 that bumped up that limit with FAT16B. I never
> bit on that one but I ran big drives with no problem on 5.0 and 6.3

Yes, my later systems (actually left-over *from* my son :-)), had
170MB and 1GB disks.

> Once I got SCSI cards in my PCs it seemed the sky was the limit on
> available drives (at least a gig anyway and that seemed like more than
> anyone would ever need.)

Indeed. More than enough!

In the end, in 2006, I copied the files from all three disks (40MB,
170MB and 1GB) to a *single* CD-R. Only 519 of the 650MB were used! :-)

> Pretty soon I had several 9404 "shoeboxes" with 857 "Redwings" in them
> that I used like big diskettes.

Frank Slootweg wrote on 4/01/2024 3:46 am:
> Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
>> On 1/3/2024 4:15 AM, Daniel65 wrote:
>>> Frank Slootweg wrote on 3/1/24 2:30 am:
>>>> Daniel65 <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
>>>>> gfretwell@aol.com wrote on 2/1/24 3:48 am:
>>>>>
>>>>> <Snip>
>>>>>
>>>>>> (no hard drives in those days)
>>>>> O.K., must have been later in the DOS series where I had
>>>>> whatever DOS installed on a 10MB Hard drive ..... on which I
>>>>> then ran "Double Space" (was it??) to give myself 20MB.
>>>>
>>>> It was DriveSpace (or SuperStor or Stacker). IIRC, I used them
>>>> all, or at least two of them.
>>>>
>>>>> *HUGE* !!
>>>>
>>>> Mine was even *HUGER*, 40MB. Way too much, so I divided it into
>>>> two partitions! [1]
>>>>
>>>> OTOH, I started with hard drives (drum drives) of 340KB (yes,
>>>> *K*B), costing $23,500 (in 1969 dollars). That to beat *that*!
>>>> :-)
>>>>
>>>> 2757A etc. <http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=548>
>>>>
>>>> [1] Not quite the reason. Real reason: 32MB maximum partition
>>>> size and I didn't want to use software to overcome that limit.
>>>
>>> "costing $23,500 (in 1969 dollars)"!!!! WOW!! Frank, can you lend
>>> me a buck or two?? ;-P
>>
>> That's probably at work.
>
> Yes, we sold/supported the things (and the systems).

Ah!! So no loan, then! Bummer ;-(
--
Daniel

Frank Slootweg wrote on 4/01/2024 5:16 am:
> Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 2 Jan 2024 15:30:28 GMT, Frank Slootweg
>> <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:
>>> Daniel65 <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
>>>> gfretwell@aol.com wrote on 2/1/24 3:48 am:
>>>>
>>>> <Snip>
>>>>
>>>>> (no hard drives in those days)
>>>> O.K., must have been later in the DOS series where I had
>>>> whatever DOS installed on a 10MB Hard drive ..... on which I
>>>> then ran "Double Space" (was it??) to give myself 20MB.
>>
>>> It was DriveSpace (or SuperStor or Stacker). IIRC, I used them
>>> all, or at least two of them.
>>
>> DoubleSpace was also an option. It's what DriveSpace was initially
>> known as when it released with MS-DOS 6.0. After Microsoft lost a
>> court case showing that they had infringed upon Stacker's patent,
>> DoubleSpace was first removed, and then later replaced with
>> DriveSpace.
>
> Thanks for the update/correction! Now you mention it, I remember the
> controversy, the Stac court case, etc.. The events are clearly
> explained in Wikipedia, especially the transition from MS-DOS 6.2
> (DoubleSpace), to MS-DOS 6.21 (without DoubleSpace) to MS-DOS 6.22
> (DriveSpace).
>
> 'DriveSpace' <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DriveSpace>
>
> 'Later versions'
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DriveSpace#Later_versions>
>
> So Daniel was correct after all. Sorry about that, Daniel.

Hey, I'll take that! ;-) ...... (then I'll run away and hide cause I
thought I was talking DOS 4 or 5 era!! ;-( )

--
Daniel

gfretwell@aol.com wrote on 4/01/2024 6:11 am:
> On 2 Jan 2024 15:30:28 GMT, Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>
> wrote:

<Snip>

>> [1] Not quite the reason. Real reason: 32MB maximum partition size and I
>> didn't want to use software to overcome that limit.
>
> There was an IBM internal use only BIOS for the PC/AT that added large
> drive support and a few other things. One of my buddies with a ROM
> burner was burning them and handing them out to hardware geeks like
> me.
> I think it was DOS 4 that bumped up that limit with FAT16B. I never
> bit on that one but I ran big drives with no problem on 5.0 and 6.3
> Once I got SCSI cards in my PCs it seemed the sky was the limit on
> available drives (at least a gig anyway and that seemed like more than
> anyone would ever need.)

WOW!! A Gig!! WOW!! I can remember going to a Museum exhibition in
1993/4 with one of my Brothers-in-law (now deceased) to see a 1GB hard
drive .... which came complete with two ARMED guards (well, that's what
they told us, anyway. :-P )!!
--
Daniel

On 3 Jan 2024 18:16:15 GMT, Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>
wrote:

>Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 2 Jan 2024 15:30:28 GMT, Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >Daniel65 <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
>> >> gfretwell@aol.com wrote on 2/1/24 3:48 am:
>> >>
>> >> <Snip>
>> >>
>> >> > (no hard drives in those days)
>> >> O.K., must have been later in the DOS series where I had whatever DOS
>> >> installed on a 10MB Hard drive ..... on which I then ran "Double Space"
>> >> (was it??) to give myself 20MB.
>>
>> > It was DriveSpace (or SuperStor or Stacker). IIRC, I used them all, or
>> >at least two of them.
>>
>> DoubleSpace was also an option. It's what DriveSpace was initially
>> known as when it released with MS-DOS 6.0. After Microsoft lost a
>> court case showing that they had infringed upon Stacker's patent,
>> DoubleSpace was first removed, and then later replaced with
>> DriveSpace.
>
> Thanks for the update/correction! Now you mention it, I remember the
>controversy, the Stac court case, etc.. The events are clearly explained
>in Wikipedia, especially the transition from MS-DOS 6.2 (DoubleSpace),
>to MS-DOS 6.21 (without DoubleSpace) to MS-DOS 6.22 (DriveSpace).
>
>'DriveSpace'
><https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DriveSpace>
>
>'Later versions'
><https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DriveSpace#Later_versions>
>
> So Daniel was correct after all. Sorry about that, Daniel.
>
>> There were a number of alternatives during that era, as increase in
>> software sizes briefly exceeded the speed at which hard-drives were
>> growing in size. I personally recall DiskDoubler (although that was
>> for Mac) and DoubleDisk (no relation),
>
> The Wikipedia article say that Microsoft's DoubleSpace was based on
>technology it licensed from the DoubleDisk deleoper Vertisoft.
>
>> but it seemed like there were
>> dozens being advertised in the magazines of the time. Given the
>> (legitimate) concerns about data corruption - even amongst the leading
>> brands - most of them slipped under the waves almost as quickly.
>>
>> I've memories of using Stacker. At the time, it didn't have a way to
>> compress your files in place, so I first had to copy all my files OFF
>> the hard-drive to make enough room for its virtual disk file. But I
>> didn't trust the software enough to give it my whole drive, so I split
>> the difference and left half the drive uncompressed. The uncompressed
>> drive got my 'important' files, while I used the compressed drive for
>> games and other nonsense.
>
> I did the same, two partitions with important/non-important stuff.
>
>> The performance hit wasn't severe, but noticable on my PC. Eventually
>> I replaced the kludge with a second hard-drive and felt much more
>> secure about everything.
>
> While I never had any data corruption problems, it was just too much
>of a hassle and I just stopped using whatever disk compression software
>I was using (probably SuperStor or Stacker, because I replaced MS-DOS
>6.X with DR DOS (6.0?)).

Like many DOS users, one of my earliest experiences with the OS was
the inevitable, "hey, what if I delete these useless files in c:\?"
experience. Stacker (and its competitors) also put a 'useless' file in
C:\. While, by the time I was experimenting with disk-compression, I
was far too savy to 'just delete some files' like I had years earlier,
it always made me nervous having an entire hard-drive's worth of data
reliant on the existence of that one single file.

Even worse because that file was hosted on a FAT-16 (just FAT, then)
filesystem. "What if that Stacker file got crosslinked with some other
file?" my brain screamed at me.

It just all seemed to risky, too tenuous to depend upon. (In fairness,
later versions of the technology started to take these problems into
consideration, but the earliest revisions were rough). A second
hard-drive, though expensive, just made more sense to me.

It was a 500MB Maxtor, IIRC. That drive stayed with me for a long
time. When I finally discarded it - after long service and an even
longer time in the storage bin - it was with a bit of sadness.

In message <02bdpid366g55eshcgidde1vsel59pcu7i@4ax.com> at Thu, 4 Jan
2024 08:08:21, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes
[]
>Like many DOS users, one of my earliest experiences with the OS was
>the inevitable, "hey, what if I delete these useless files in c:\?"
>experience. Stacker (and its competitors) also put a 'useless' file in
>C:\. While, by the time I was experimenting with disk-compression, I
>was far too savy to 'just delete some files' like I had years earlier,
>it always made me nervous having an entire hard-drive's worth of data
>reliant on the existence of that one single file.
[]
Many of us still have a similar situation, but have forgotten about it:
many of our news and, in particular, mail clients store their newsbase
and mailbase in one single file. I've never felt completely at ease with
that, but just hope for the best (and nowadays back up my Turnpike
directory regularly), and on the whole have never been let down that I
remember by Turnpike (though have occasionally had to "rebuild
database"). I have a vague memory of some rogue email corrupting my
system at work - that'd have been Outlook or Outlook Express.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Ask not for whom the bell tolls; let the machine get it

[snip]

> There was an IBM internal use only BIOS for the PC/AT that added large
> drive support and a few other things. One of my buddies with a ROM
> burner was burning them and handing them out to hardware geeks like
> me.
> I think it was DOS 4 that bumped up that limit with FAT16B. I never
> bit on that one but I ran big drives with no problem on 5.0 and 6.3
> Once I got SCSI cards in my PCs it seemed the sky was the limit on
> available drives (at least a gig anyway and that seemed like more than
> anyone would ever need.)

The motherboard I bought in 1990 came with DR-DOS 3.41, which supported
FAT16b.

> Pretty soon I had several 9404 "shoeboxes" with 857 "Redwings" in them
> that I used like big diskettes.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"This indictment of Christianity I will write on all walls, wherever
there are walls--I have letters to make even the blind see." [Nietzsche]

On 3 Jan 2024 19:53:31 GMT, Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>
wrote:

>gfretwell@aol.com wrote:
>> On 2 Jan 2024 15:30:28 GMT, Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >Daniel65 <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
>> >> gfretwell@aol.com wrote on 2/1/24 3:48 am:
>> >>
>> >> <Snip>
>> >>
>> >> > (no hard drives in those days)
>> >> O.K., must have been later in the DOS series where I had whatever DOS
>> >> installed on a 10MB Hard drive ..... on which I then ran "Double Space"
>> >> (was it??) to give myself 20MB.
>> >
>> > It was DriveSpace (or SuperStor or Stacker). IIRC, I used them all, or
>> >at least two of them.
>> >
>> >> *HUGE* !!
>> >
>> > Mine was even *HUGER*, 40MB. Way too much, so I divided it into two
>> >partitions! [1]
>> >
>> > OTOH, I started with hard drives (drum drives) of 340KB (yes, *K*B),
>> >costing $23,500 (in 1969 dollars). That to beat *that*! :-)
>> >
>> >2757A etc.
>> ><http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=548>
>>
>> Yup I was an IBM brat so our 1311 started at 2 meg per pack in the
>> early 60s and that went to 7 meg with the 2311 (same basic box, same
>> pack but higher bit density and SLT logic). Things started going up
>> from there.
>
> Are you sure about that timing (assuming with "meg" you mean a
>megabyte, not a megabit)?
>
> As my reference shows, in 1968 the HP 2775A indeed had 1,572,864
>(16-bit) words capacity, so ~3MB, but that was *late* 60s.

The 1311 was early 60s (1962), typically on a 1401 system and each
pack held 2 million 7 bit characters.

>> >[1] Not quite the reason. Real reason: 32MB maximum partition size and I
>> >didn't want to use software to overcome that limit.
>>
>> There was an IBM internal use only BIOS for the PC/AT that added large
>> drive support and a few other things. One of my buddies with a ROM
>> burner was burning them and handing them out to hardware geeks like
>> me.
>
> My HP QS/16 (16MHz 386DX, 40MB disk) came with software (a driver?) to
>go beyond 32MB, but as said, I didn't use it.
>
I was running an ST 4096 80m on a PC/AT with DOS 3.3 but I broke it up
into 3 partitions, an architecture I still run
C: system files.
D: common data files (storage for program data)
E: everything else.
That makes your backups, from XP on, much simpler
Image a relatively small system drive and simply copy all the rest of
the files on your data drives with a sync program.
The only one that really needs to be an image is the system files
because of the registry and other program sensitive data. I keep that
as small as possible.

On Thu, 4 Jan 2024 11:17:32 +1100, Daniel65
<daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:

>gfretwell@aol.com wrote on 4/01/2024 6:11 am:
>> On 2 Jan 2024 15:30:28 GMT, Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>
>> wrote:
>
><Snip>
>
>>> [1] Not quite the reason. Real reason: 32MB maximum partition size and I
>>> didn't want to use software to overcome that limit.
>>
>> There was an IBM internal use only BIOS for the PC/AT that added large
>> drive support and a few other things. One of my buddies with a ROM
>> burner was burning them and handing them out to hardware geeks like
>> me.
>> I think it was DOS 4 that bumped up that limit with FAT16B. I never
>> bit on that one but I ran big drives with no problem on 5.0 and 6.3
>> Once I got SCSI cards in my PCs it seemed the sky was the limit on
>> available drives (at least a gig anyway and that seemed like more than
>> anyone would ever need.)
>
>WOW!! A Gig!! WOW!! I can remember going to a Museum exhibition in
>1993/4 with one of my Brothers-in-law (now deceased) to see a 1GB hard
>drive .... which came complete with two ARMED guards (well, that's what
>they told us, anyway. :-P )!!

The 857m Redwings I was running were already getting long in the tooth
by 1994 so I can't imagine a gig had that much value unless it was
full of military secrets or something.
We were shipping 1g Corsairs in 1991.

On Thu, 04 Jan 2024 08:08:21 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 3 Jan 2024 18:16:15 GMT, Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>
>wrote:
>
>>Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On 2 Jan 2024 15:30:28 GMT, Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> >Daniel65 <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
>>> >> gfretwell@aol.com wrote on 2/1/24 3:48 am:
>>> >>
>>> >> <Snip>
>>> >>
>>> >> > (no hard drives in those days)
>>> >> O.K., must have been later in the DOS series where I had whatever DOS
>>> >> installed on a 10MB Hard drive ..... on which I then ran "Double Space"
>>> >> (was it??) to give myself 20MB.
>>>
>>> > It was DriveSpace (or SuperStor or Stacker). IIRC, I used them all, or
>>> >at least two of them.
>>>
>>> DoubleSpace was also an option. It's what DriveSpace was initially
>>> known as when it released with MS-DOS 6.0. After Microsoft lost a
>>> court case showing that they had infringed upon Stacker's patent,
>>> DoubleSpace was first removed, and then later replaced with
>>> DriveSpace.
>>
>> Thanks for the update/correction! Now you mention it, I remember the
>>controversy, the Stac court case, etc.. The events are clearly explained
>>in Wikipedia, especially the transition from MS-DOS 6.2 (DoubleSpace),
>>to MS-DOS 6.21 (without DoubleSpace) to MS-DOS 6.22 (DriveSpace).
>>
>>'DriveSpace'
>><https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DriveSpace>
>>
>>'Later versions'
>><https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DriveSpace#Later_versions>
>>
>> So Daniel was correct after all. Sorry about that, Daniel.
>>
>>> There were a number of alternatives during that era, as increase in
>>> software sizes briefly exceeded the speed at which hard-drives were
>>> growing in size. I personally recall DiskDoubler (although that was
>>> for Mac) and DoubleDisk (no relation),
>>
>> The Wikipedia article say that Microsoft's DoubleSpace was based on
>>technology it licensed from the DoubleDisk deleoper Vertisoft.
>>
>>> but it seemed like there were
>>> dozens being advertised in the magazines of the time. Given the
>>> (legitimate) concerns about data corruption - even amongst the leading
>>> brands - most of them slipped under the waves almost as quickly.
>>>
>>> I've memories of using Stacker. At the time, it didn't have a way to
>>> compress your files in place, so I first had to copy all my files OFF
>>> the hard-drive to make enough room for its virtual disk file. But I
>>> didn't trust the software enough to give it my whole drive, so I split
>>> the difference and left half the drive uncompressed. The uncompressed
>>> drive got my 'important' files, while I used the compressed drive for
>>> games and other nonsense.
>>
>> I did the same, two partitions with important/non-important stuff.
>>
>>> The performance hit wasn't severe, but noticable on my PC. Eventually
>>> I replaced the kludge with a second hard-drive and felt much more
>>> secure about everything.
>>
>> While I never had any data corruption problems, it was just too much
>>of a hassle and I just stopped using whatever disk compression software
>>I was using (probably SuperStor or Stacker, because I replaced MS-DOS
>>6.X with DR DOS (6.0?)).
>
>Like many DOS users, one of my earliest experiences with the OS was
>the inevitable, "hey, what if I delete these useless files in c:\?"
>experience. Stacker (and its competitors) also put a 'useless' file in
>C:\. While, by the time I was experimenting with disk-compression, I
>was far too savy to 'just delete some files' like I had years earlier,
>it always made me nervous having an entire hard-drive's worth of data
>reliant on the existence of that one single file.
>
>Even worse because that file was hosted on a FAT-16 (just FAT, then)
>filesystem. "What if that Stacker file got crosslinked with some other
>file?" my brain screamed at me.
>
>It just all seemed to risky, too tenuous to depend upon. (In fairness,
>later versions of the technology started to take these problems into
>consideration, but the earliest revisions were rough). A second
>hard-drive, though expensive, just made more sense to me.
>
>It was a 500MB Maxtor, IIRC. That drive stayed with me for a long
>time. When I finally discarded it - after long service and an even
>longer time in the storage bin - it was with a bit of sadness.
>

I never trusted compression enough to use it but I was a CE. If
everything worked right every time, I wouldn't have a very interesting
day.

On Thu, 4 Jan 2024 13:48:19 -0600, Mark Lloyd <not.email@all.invalid>
wrote:

>[snip]
>
>> There was an IBM internal use only BIOS for the PC/AT that added large
>> drive support and a few other things. One of my buddies with a ROM
>> burner was burning them and handing them out to hardware geeks like
>> me.
>> I think it was DOS 4 that bumped up that limit with FAT16B. I never
>> bit on that one but I ran big drives with no problem on 5.0 and 6.3
>> Once I got SCSI cards in my PCs it seemed the sky was the limit on
>> available drives (at least a gig anyway and that seemed like more than
>> anyone would ever need.)
>
>The motherboard I bought in 1990 came with DR-DOS 3.41, which supported
>FAT16b.
>
In the early 90s(90-96), the whole idea of "buying" a system board, or
any other PC part was foreign to me. I ran the parts room and we had a
part number for shrinkwrapped PC DOS at the current version. ;)
We had the PCTOOLS forum on VM with just about any little snippet of
PC code you could think of, including IBM internal tools that never
made it to the public.
That was when PC hardware hacking was fun for me.
Most of it did end up being business related tho.
At home I was running stuff that was obsolete at work.

In message <qeoepi9kim4799bm2a9fegip2jm7icnavp@4ax.com> at Thu, 4 Jan
2024 21:08:21, gfretwell@aol.com writes
[]
>into 3 partitions, an architecture I still run
>C: system files.
>D: common data files (storage for program data)
>E: everything else.
>That makes your backups, from XP on, much simpler
>Image a relatively small system drive and simply copy all the rest of
>the files on your data drives with a sync program.
>The only one that really needs to be an image is the system files
>because of the registry and other program sensitive data. I keep that
>as small as possible.
>
Much the same here, except I just run C: (OS and installed software) and
D: (all data, including downloaded installers for the software). I image
C: (with Macrium), and copy D: (with FreeFileSync currently). I thought
about trying to keep OS and other software separate, but couldn't see
any advantage, and software gets its teeth into the registry, system
files etc., so I just couldn't see any point (and saw horrendous
difficulties doing so). My C: is 50G (19.6G free).
Whatever works for you!
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'evidence'. Professor Edzart Ernst, prudential
magazine, AUTUMN 2006, p. 13.

J. P. Gilliver wrote on 5/1/24 2:57 pm:
> In message <qeoepi9kim4799bm2a9fegip2jm7icnavp@4ax.com> at Thu, 4 Jan
> 2024 21:08:21, gfretwell@aol.com writes []
>> into 3 partitions, an architecture I still run C: system files. D:
>> common data files (storage for program data) E: everything else.
>> That makes your backups, from XP on, much simpler Image a
>> relatively small system drive and simply copy all the rest of the
>> files on your data drives with a sync program. The only one that
>> really needs to be an image is the system files because of the
>> registry and other program sensitive data. I keep that as small as
>> possible.
>>
> Much the same here, except I just run C: (OS and installed software)
> and D: (all data, including downloaded installers for the software).
> I image C: (with Macrium), and copy D: (with FreeFileSync currently).
> I thought about trying to keep OS and other software separate, but
> couldn't see any advantage, and software gets its teeth into the
> registry, system files etc., so I just couldn't see any point (and
> saw horrendous difficulties doing so). My C: is 50G (19.6G free).
> Whatever works for you!

For me ....

C:\ Win7 OS files only (if I can help)
E:\ Other Executables (Word process, etc)
F:\ Data files, Letters, Games, SeaMonkey Profile files, etc.

Of course D:\ is the DVD R/RW drive.
--
Daniel

In message <un8fup$3kh2$1@dont-email.me> at Fri, 5 Jan 2024 19:51:35,
Daniel65 <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> writes
>J. P. Gilliver wrote on 5/1/24 2:57 pm:
[]
>> Much the same here, except I just run C: (OS and installed software)
>> and D: (all data, including downloaded installers for the software).
>> I image C: (with Macrium), and copy D: (with FreeFileSync currently).
>> I thought about trying to keep OS and other software separate, but
>> couldn't see any advantage, and software gets its teeth into the
>> registry, system files etc., so I just couldn't see any point (and
>> saw horrendous difficulties doing so). My C: is 50G (19.6G free).
>>Whatever works for you!
>
>For me ....
>
>C:\ Win7 OS files only (if I can help)
>E:\ Other Executables (Word process, etc)
>F:\ Data files, Letters, Games, SeaMonkey Profile files, etc.

For backup, do you image C: and E:, and sync F:?
Why (and how) do you keep C: and E: separate?
>
>Of course D:\ is the DVD R/RW drive.

Mine appears as E:.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"If even one person" arguments allow the perfect to become the enemy of the
good, and thus they tend to cause more harm than good.
- Jimmy Akins quoted by Scott Adams, 2015-5-5

gfretwell@aol.com wrote:
[...]

> I was running an ST 4096 80m on a PC/AT with DOS 3.3 but I broke it up
> into 3 partitions, an architecture I still run
> C: system files.
> D: common data files (storage for program data)
> E: everything else.
> That makes your backups, from XP on, much simpler
> Image a relatively small system drive and simply copy all the rest of
> the files on your data drives with a sync program.
> The only one that really needs to be an image is the system files
> because of the registry and other program sensitive data. I keep that
> as small as possible.

I should do something similar, but the 'problem' is that when I get a
new system (laptop), the 'installation' (read: initialization) procedure
of the Windows (now Windows 11) on the disk [1] does not give the
choice/chance to partition the disk.

After this setting up of the basic Windows system, I'm normally quite
busy to get all the old stuff working again on the new system, so
getting partitioning software and partitioning the disk is left on the
back burner, until it's too late/bothersome to do it after the fact.

On bright side: While imaging the 'whole' disk (currently 216GB used
of 1TB) is time consuming, so I do a differential only once a month, I
have never needed to restore an image. (I only once used an image to
recover some file(s) or/and 'database'. I forgot the details.)

Only if I have a catastrophic [2] disk failure, I might have to
restore an old image and might/will have to redo some re-installation,
re-configuration, re-updating, etc.. (My data files are backed up
seperately, the most important stuff daily (or twice daily), the rest
weekly.)

This approach has been working for a bit over two decades, so I think
I'm safe! :-) <knocks on wood>

[1] Now SSD.

[2] For a non-catastrophic failure, for example a boot failure, I can
image the disk offline, just in case. I can then try fix the failure and
if I make things worse doing so, I can restore the image I just made and
start over.

On 1/4/2024 9:17 PM, gfretwell@aol.com wrote:
> On Thu, 04 Jan 2024 08:08:21 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
> <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 3 Jan 2024 18:16:15 GMT, Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On 2 Jan 2024 15:30:28 GMT, Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Daniel65 <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
>>>>>> gfretwell@aol.com wrote on 2/1/24 3:48 am:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> <Snip>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> (no hard drives in those days)
>>>>>> O.K., must have been later in the DOS series where I had whatever DOS
>>>>>> installed on a 10MB Hard drive ..... on which I then ran "Double Space"
>>>>>> (was it??) to give myself 20MB.
>>>>
>>>>> It was DriveSpace (or SuperStor or Stacker). IIRC, I used them all, or
>>>>> at least two of them.
>>>>
>>>> DoubleSpace was also an option. It's what DriveSpace was initially
>>>> known as when it released with MS-DOS 6.0. After Microsoft lost a
>>>> court case showing that they had infringed upon Stacker's patent,
>>>> DoubleSpace was first removed, and then later replaced with
>>>> DriveSpace.
>>>
>>> Thanks for the update/correction! Now you mention it, I remember the
>>> controversy, the Stac court case, etc.. The events are clearly explained
>>> in Wikipedia, especially the transition from MS-DOS 6.2 (DoubleSpace),
>>> to MS-DOS 6.21 (without DoubleSpace) to MS-DOS 6.22 (DriveSpace).
>>>
>>> 'DriveSpace'
>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DriveSpace>
>>>
>>> 'Later versions'
>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DriveSpace#Later_versions>
>>>
>>> So Daniel was correct after all. Sorry about that, Daniel.
>>>
>>>> There were a number of alternatives during that era, as increase in
>>>> software sizes briefly exceeded the speed at which hard-drives were
>>>> growing in size. I personally recall DiskDoubler (although that was
>>>> for Mac) and DoubleDisk (no relation),
>>>
>>> The Wikipedia article say that Microsoft's DoubleSpace was based on
>>> technology it licensed from the DoubleDisk deleoper Vertisoft.
>>>
>>>> but it seemed like there were
>>>> dozens being advertised in the magazines of the time. Given the
>>>> (legitimate) concerns about data corruption - even amongst the leading
>>>> brands - most of them slipped under the waves almost as quickly.
>>>>
>>>> I've memories of using Stacker. At the time, it didn't have a way to
>>>> compress your files in place, so I first had to copy all my files OFF
>>>> the hard-drive to make enough room for its virtual disk file. But I
>>>> didn't trust the software enough to give it my whole drive, so I split
>>>> the difference and left half the drive uncompressed. The uncompressed
>>>> drive got my 'important' files, while I used the compressed drive for
>>>> games and other nonsense.
>>>
>>> I did the same, two partitions with important/non-important stuff.
>>>
>>>> The performance hit wasn't severe, but noticable on my PC. Eventually
>>>> I replaced the kludge with a second hard-drive and felt much more
>>>> secure about everything.
>>>
>>> While I never had any data corruption problems, it was just too much
>>> of a hassle and I just stopped using whatever disk compression software
>>> I was using (probably SuperStor or Stacker, because I replaced MS-DOS
>>> 6.X with DR DOS (6.0?)).
>>
>> Like many DOS users, one of my earliest experiences with the OS was
>> the inevitable, "hey, what if I delete these useless files in c:\?"
>> experience. Stacker (and its competitors) also put a 'useless' file in
>> C:\. While, by the time I was experimenting with disk-compression, I
>> was far too savy to 'just delete some files' like I had years earlier,
>> it always made me nervous having an entire hard-drive's worth of data
>> reliant on the existence of that one single file.
>>
>> Even worse because that file was hosted on a FAT-16 (just FAT, then)
>> filesystem. "What if that Stacker file got crosslinked with some other
>> file?" my brain screamed at me.
>>
>> It just all seemed to risky, too tenuous to depend upon. (In fairness,
>> later versions of the technology started to take these problems into
>> consideration, but the earliest revisions were rough). A second
>> hard-drive, though expensive, just made more sense to me.
>>
>> It was a 500MB Maxtor, IIRC. That drive stayed with me for a long
>> time. When I finally discarded it - after long service and an even
>> longer time in the storage bin - it was with a bit of sadness.
>>
>
> I never trusted compression enough to use it but I was a CE. If
> everything worked right every time, I wouldn't have a very interesting
> day.
>

Compression requires good RAM and good storage.

We haven't had good RAM for all that long.

We need good RAM, because we don't have the brains to have ECC DIMMs.

Here, let me show you my setting.

$ fsutil behavior query disableCompression
DisableCompression = 1 (Compression is DISABLED)

And that applies to user-land folder compression too. it is a
setting without granularity, a machine-wide setting.

wmic ComputerSystem get TotalPhysicalMemory

wmic OS get FreePhysicalMemory

Which will give more puzzles than you have time for :-)

Paul