Msg: 5163 *Conference*

07-04-94 23:17:28

From: COMET _

To : TRACY ALLEN

Subj: UNDELETE -- COLD START RECOVERY

In your article, "Cold Boot Hill!", you detail how to recovery document files 
lost due to cold restart of the Tandy m100/102.

 OPEN"IT"FOROUTPUTAS1
 FORX=32768TOHIMEM:PRINT#1,CHR$(PEEK(X));:NEXT

Now, after deleting the tokenized BASIC programs and machine language programs,
one is left with the data from the document files.  Great!

HOWEVER, you say it is "impossible to recovery the BASIC programs." Why???  I
mean, it seems to me that all the data of the PROGRAM is still there.
Similarly, it appears to my naive eyes that all the data from the machine
language programs are still there, too!  It would seem to me that it *ought* to
be possible to recovery these things, possibly by rebuilding the file
directory.  After all, if the file data is still here, then the only reason the
files don't show up after a cold restart MUST be that the file directory is
munged.  Knowing the format of the file directory, machine language files and
tokenized BASIC programs, I'd reckon that one should be able to put Humpty
Dumpty back together again.

I can just picture loading a mish-mash of files, doing a cold-boot, and saving
the entire RAM contents into a bank of the XR4 while one practices recovery
techniques.  :-)  I'd guess that the ONLY thing that needs to be rebuilt is the
file directory; what do You know about this?  Am I right?

If so, then some kind of recovery PROGRAM might even be possible to write. Of
course, having an extra RAM bank would be helpful, or maybe a ROM  program.  I
can see that recovering the current unnamed BASIC program would be problematic
if one starts putting line numbers down.  :-) Still, I can imagine there might
be some demand for such a thing.  ;-)

[Imagine how people will feel if you walk over and cold-start their computer,
and say "Oops!"  <*heh-heh*>  And THEN you could (if they let you near the
computer again) efficiently bring the
 programs back--they'd think you a Real Wizard!  ;-O ]