5.6

RAM DISK EMULATION

PRODOS RAM DISK

The MULTIDRIVE.PRO program converts your MultiRam Cs memory into a fast electronic disk drive for the ProDOS operating system. The ProDOS RAM disk is recognized by ProDOS as one large ProWS volume.

Specifications

The MULTIDRIVE.PR0 RAM disk program creates one ProWS volume named “/RAM,” located in slot 3, drive 2. The size of the “/RAM” disk depends upon the amount of memory on the MultiRam C Card. RAM disk memory can be as small as 256K or, with a full 512K of memory on the MultiRam C, as large as 512K.

The “/RAM" disk created by the MULTIDRIYE.PRO program will take the place of the 64K “/RAM" drive automatically created by the ProDOS operating system in the 64K auxiliary bank of the //c. You will always have a larger RAM drive using the MultiRam “IRAN” disk than the RAM disk ProDOS automatically creates.

The MultiRam ProWS RAM disk uses only memory on the MultiRam C Card to create a RAM disk so that the RAM disk directory and files stored on the RAM disk cannot be destroyed by booting a program that uses main memory end the standard //c 64K auxiliary memory bank.

The ProWS RAM disk can be used with ProDOS version 1.1.1 or any older version of ProDOS and is compatible with floppy and hard disk drives.

The storage capacities of the ProWS RAM drive are as follows:

MultiRam C

RAM Disk

Total

Blocks

Blocks

Size

Size

Blocks

Free

Used

----------

--------

--------

------

-------

256K

256K

512

495

17

3201

320K

640

620

20

512!

512K

1024

1024

29

In comparison, a standard Apple 5 1/4 inch floppy disk formatted by the Filer with the ProWS operating system and the BASIC.SYSTEM file saved to it (which are already in memory whenever the ProDOS RAM disk is used) has 2B0 total blocks available. 221 blocks free and 59 used.

Installation

To install the ProDOS RAM disk, simply boot the Utilities side of the MultiRam disk. Select the ProDOS RAM disk option from the main menu and the RAM disk will be automatically installed. You will then see a message telling you the disk has been activated and you will also see the memory size used by the ProDOS RAM disk.