Alfredo writes:

>Are you saying that Windows 95 is just now going to a 32-bit file system?
>My Mac has been 32-bit clean since 1991 (or even before)...   And MPE since
>1987...   Mmmm...   Just wondering about the future, about which some
>people passively seem to have no choice :-)

"32 bit file system" in this context is a bit misleading. The FAT file
system, like the Mac's Hierarchical File System (HFS), uses a 16-bit
allocation block pointer. This limits the number of allocation blocks on
a volume to 65536. Since the minimum size of a file is one allocation
block, very large volumes have inefficient disc allocation (and
incidentally, a limit of something less than 65536 files per volume). For
example, a 4GB volume would have a minimum file size of 64KB (65536
allocation blocks of 65536 bytes each).

Win95's latest encarnation, which isn't available except if you buy a new
system or happen to belong to one or another of Microsoft's clubs, offers
a file system with 32-bit allocation block pointers. It's incompatible
with anything else in the Universe, including WinNT, so I can't use it,
but it's there. The larger allocation block pointers mean that you can
have more blocks per volume, so allocation block sizes can be a lot
smaller. (NTFS uses a completely disc format and doesn't have the
allocation block size problem. Win95 can't use NTFS volumes.)

Apple's solution is called HFS-Plus, and it should be available by the
end of the year. It will be compatible with HFS for small volumes (i.e.,
an old computer can mount a small HFS-Plus volume). They've also done
some magic so that programs that traverse the directory won't break
unless they actually do calculations with the allocation block pointer.
The software was demonstrated at the Worldwide Developer Conference last
month.

-- Bruce


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