Apple II
Technical Notes
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                                                  Developer Technical Support


ProDOS 8
#8:    Dealing with /RAM

Revised by:    Matt Deatherage                                  November 1988
Written by:    Kerry Laidlaw                                     October 1984

This Technical Note formerly described conventions for dealing with the built-
in ProDOS 8 RAM disk, /RAM.
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Section 5.2.2 of the ProDOS 8 Technical Reference Manual now documents the 
conventions on how to handle /RAM, including how to disconnect it, how to 
reconnect it, and precautions you should follow if doing either, which were 
covered in this Note.  The manual also includes sample source code.

Executing the sample code which comes with the manual to disconnect /RAM has 
the undesired effect of decreasing the maximum number of volumes on-line when 
used with versions of ProDOSĘ8 prior to 1.2.  This side effect is because 
earlier versions of ProDOS 8 do not have the capability to remove the volume 
control block (VCB) entry which is allocated for /RAM when it is installed.

In later versions of ProDOS 8 (1.2 and later), this problem no longer exists, 
and you should issue an ON_LINE call to a device after disconnecting it.  This 
call returns error $28 (no device connected), but it also erases the VCB entry 
for the disconnected device.


Further Reference
o    ProDOS 8 Technical Reference Manual
o    ProDOS 8 Update Manual

