No Fragments Archive 10: Diskmags/nf_archive_10.iso/MAGS/KELAUG/KELAUG09.MSA/FILES_KOBOLD.REV/FILES_KOBOLD.REV

Text File | 1984-12-31 | 4KB | 63 lines

                                K O B O L D  2

                        Article submitted by Paul Davis



File  copying  utilities  don't usually raise any  eyebrows.  As  far  as  most
computer  users are concerned,  whatever the platform,  file copying  and  disk
formatting  are functions that are built into the operating system  and  that's
that.  And  so  they  are.  But when you look at just  how  well  they've  been
implimented  in the past,  it's hard to see why we've put up with them  for  so
long.

The floppy may be dying out as far as the PC and Mac are concerned, although it
will  be around for sometime yet,  but it still forms an essential part of  the
Atari.  Even with the boom in Atari hard drives and CD Roms,  Atari users still
format disks on a regular basis and copy files to and fro.  It's extremely slow
but most people aren't aware of an alternative method, Kobold 2.

Kobold calls itself a high speed copier for all Ataris,  the word means imp  in
German,  .  It's all that,  and more.  Name a task that's related to mass  data
storage  and  Kobold  can help out.  It can also save you a  lot  of  time.  It
replaces  the  slow operating system filehandling routines and  adds  it's  own
custom  code that does the job many times better.  Now where have I heard  that
before?  That's right,  NVDI. In many ways Kobold is the NVDI of the disk drive
world.  A  little  golden  nugget  that  will change  the  way  you  do  things
permanently.  Instead  of groaning inwardly when you realise that you  need  to
copy  half  of a partition to a backup device or  swap  partitions  around,  or
whatever,  you can smile a big greasy smarmy smile to  yourself.  Why?  Because
Kobold can do it in a fraction of the time.

Seconds out.

Take a peek at the figures quoted in the manual. The tests were apparently done
using a 4 meg ST with a Quantum 105 meg Hard Drive.  Using the built in  Gemdos
routines  it  took  3 minutes and 25 seconds to copy around  263  files  in  15
folders, from a floppy disk to a hard disk. Kobold took 40 seconds. Copying the
other way looks even more impressive.  It took 13 minutes to copy the files  to
the floppy using Gemdos and under 2 using Kobold.  Of course it could still  be
all a pack of lies,  so I tried a few tests myself. It was even more impressive
on my ST, my old STFM with a switchable Tos 2. 06 and an old Atari Megafile 60.
It took me just over 3 minutes to copy around 300 files amounting to about 500k
from one partition to another using ordinary Gemdos file copying, painful. With
Kobold  it  took 8 seconds,  that's a pretty impressive speed  again.  It  took
almost  a  minute  to delete them again,  but using Kobold it  was  done  in  a
fraction of a second,  almost instantaneously in fact.  Then I copied the  same
files to a floppy. On the desktop, believe it or not, it took nearly 18 minutes
to complete the transfer.  Kobold did it in just over 1 minute. Now these tests
are  admittedly  rather rough and ready and the results will  be  different  on
other systems. You should also remember that the speed increase only works when
lots  of files are involved.  Copying one file to,  another partition  or  disk
takes  just  as long using Gemdos or Kobold.  However,  it's fair to  draw  two
conclusions.  Firstly,  the manual's claims aren't hype.  Kobold has a  drastic
effect on file management. Secondly, the improvement will be more noticeable on
slower systems.  If,  heaven forbid, you're using Tos 1. 2 or earlier, you will
be staggered at how long you were taking to do these things before Kobold.



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