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APPLEWORKS & MULTIRAM 4.7
The sizes AppleWorks will report for files greater then 255K will be incorrect.
Figure 4.1 shows a catalog of a ProDOS hard disk subdirectory with one
AppleWorks file “SAMPLE” in the directory. ProDOS reports the size of a file in
blocks. A block is 512 bytes or 1/2 of 1K. Therefore the size of the file is
621 blocks divided by 2 or 310K.
The sase file when cataloged by AppleWorks shows 53K on disk end 67K when loaded
onto the Desktop as Figures 4.2 and 4.3 show.
The reason for the discrepancy is that AppleWorks was not designed for files
larger than 255K. the upper limit a single byte can indicate. A future
modification to AppleWorks may be possible to correct this problem.
To tell how big a file is when saved on floppy disk is easy; an Apple 5 1/4 inch
floppy can hold only 136K and a large file must be split over several disks.
Count the number of disks the file spans and you can easily approximate its true
size.
To tell how big a file is on hard disk is more difficult. When you save a file
to a hard disk, you may wish to add the real size to the file name to avoid
later confusion . From ProDOS, after exiting AppleWorks, catalog the AppleWorks
files subdirectory, get the file’s block count, divide by two, and rename the
file with the results. At minimum, you should at least add some indicator to
the file’s name to inform you that the file is larger than 255K.
If you know a file is larger than 255K on disk, add 256 to the file size shown,
and the result should approximately equal the right size. In our example. 53K
plus 256K equals 309K, approximately the 310K determined earlier.
When a large file is loaded to the desktop, as Figure 4.3 shows, AppleWorks will
continue to show an incorrect size. The size will always be larger then the size
shown on disk as AppleWorks uses a compaction scheme when it saves files to
disk. If the amount of space remaining on the desktop is small and the file on
the desktop also shows a small size, you will need to add 256K to the file size
to get a correct size.
The available space shown remaining on the Desktop is always accurate. The size
of the large file shown on the Desktop, corrected by 256K, and the amount shown
remaining on the Desktop may not equal the original empty Desktop, however.
Every record/row of a file has some unusable bytes associated with it. The
larger the number of records or rows in a file, therefore, the larger the
discrepancy. Most certainly, you will not be able to load a file that is larger
than the amount shown remaining on the desktop.
Benchmarks
Following are sample values describing some of the time requirements or
capacities for certain operations in AppleWorks. Because of the many variables
involved, some values will very significantly in different test situations.