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ProDOS-cracking DOS 3.3?

From Steve Nickolas <usotsuki@buric.co>
Newsgroups comp.sys.apple2
Subject ProDOS-cracking DOS 3.3?
Date 2025-11-07 21:24 -0500
Organization A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID <alpine.DEB.2.21.2511072116290.2227@sd-119843.dedibox.fr> (permalink)

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OK, this is going to sound REALLY stupid.

One thing I've found when trying to do ProDOS ports of DOS 3.3-based 
software is that BASIC.SYSTEM really does NOT interact well with anything 
that hijacks the I/O vectors.  Sometimes, as with "Word Attack", that can 
be hacked around.  Other times, the best that can be done is to port it to 
RDOS and then use PDOS RDOS instead of BASIC.SYSTEM.

Another option specific to hard disks, or if something is small enough to 
use a sparse file, is to use the MECC.SYSTEM approach, which actually uses 
a hacked DOS 3.3 and reads software out of a floppy disk image.

I've thought of the possibility of actually *ProDOS-cracking DOS 3.3*, 
such that the filesystem code is replaced with calls into ProDOS-8. 
Enough of the system would be left alone that most BASIC stuff can still 
work exactly as before.  INT can be replaced with BYE, and do what is 
expected.  This might require some work beyond what I'm capable of doing 
but I could try it - it would open up a world of ProDOS ports, especially 
of a ton of edutainment software which was principally written in BASIC 
and used the likes of HRCG or MECC's HPRINT to write on the screen.

(Remember: ProDOS ports can be put on 3.5" disks and hard drives/flash 
drives more conveniently than the original DOS 3.3 versions.)

-uso.

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Thread

ProDOS-cracking DOS 3.3? Steve Nickolas <usotsuki@buric.co> - 2025-11-07 21:24 -0500
  Re: ProDOS-cracking DOS 3.3? Peter Ferrie <peter.ferrie@gmail.com> - 2025-11-26 04:44 +0000
    Re: ProDOS-cracking DOS 3.3? Steve Nickolas <usotsuki@buric.co> - 2025-11-26 06:48 -0500

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