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1 --------------------------------------- [Ctrl-S pauses/Space=quit] 1 0 WHENEVER YOU INITIALIZE A BLANK DISK, A COPY OF DOS IS WRITTEN ONTO IT. THIS ENSURES THAT THE DISK IS BOOTABLE. BUT SOME DISKS ARE NEVER BOOTED. THEY'RE USED ONLY TO STORE PROGRAMS, TEXT FILES OR OTHER DATA. IF DOS COULD BE ELIMINATED FROM THESE DISKS, YOU'D GAIN EXTRA STORAGE SPACE FOR OTHER FILES. SUCH A DOS-LESS DISK CAN BE CREATED VERY EASILY. THE METHOD DESCRIBED BELOW WAS POSTED ON COMPUSERVE BY BILL STEINBERG, A MEMBER OF THE APPLE INTEREST GROUP OVER THERE. THE PROCEDURE WORKS WITH ANY 48K APPLE II WITH DOS 3.3. FIRST, BOOT ANY STANDARD APPLE DOS DISK IN ORDER TO LOAD DOS INTO MEMORY. IF A HELLO PROGRAM RAN, EXIT IT AND GET INTO APPLESOFT. NOW TYPE IN THE FOLLOWING SIX POKES: POKE -20734, 234 POKE -20733, 234 POKE -20732, 234 (THOSE POKES PREVENT DOS FROM BEING WRITTEN TO THE DISK DURING THE INIT PROCESS.) POKE -20813, 4 (CLEARS THE VTOC SECTOR BIT MAP DOWN TO TRACK 1 INSTEAD OF TRACK 3.) POKE -23188, 208 POKE -23187, 3 (EXITS THE INIT ROUTINE WITHOUT SAVING A HELLO PROGRAM.) THAT'S ALL. NOW INITIALIZE A BLANK DISK USING THE INIT COMMAND. (DON'T TRY THIS ON A DISK WHICH ALREADY CONTAINS DATA!) THE NEWLY INITIALIZED DISK WILL NOT BE ABLE TO BOOT, BUT IT WILL PROVIDE 2 TRACKS (32 SECTORS) OF EXTRA SPACE FOR PROGRAMS OR OTHER FILES. YOU MAY WISH TO LABEL SUCH DISKS AS "DATA DISKS" OR "NON-BOOTABLE" OR SOMETHING SIMILAR. TO USE THESE DISKS IN THE FUTURE, YOU MERELY LOAD DOS INTO YOUR APPLE WITH A REGULAR, BOOTABLE DISK, THEN INSERT ONE OF YOUR DOS-LESS DISKS TO LOAD OR SAVE FILES ON IT AS YOU WOULD WITH ANY OTHER DISK. --------------------------------------- Enter (1-10, M=Menu, Q=Quit) :