>My point here is that the partition format of Apple HD's is NOT compatible
>with that of MSDOS or Unix.

Depends on your point of view, which machine and which Unix. In fact the
specs for Sys Vr2-3 allowed for the use of 'non-Unix' file systems in
terms of access from I/O. How else could you get striped file systems or
real time contiguous file systems to live with 'normal' 4.2 or ufs file
systems. I would consider having the capability to format any and all
file systems a user might consider using on his/her Mac. Plus the 
ability to mount or use all of said file systems from the Unix environment. 

In any case the Sys V specs basically said you could have non-unix file systems
which could still be compatible to an extent. 

>Let's direct the user to one of them so that
>they do not mess up their ability to run the MacOS. 

Or DOS as well. Perhaps it would be possible to incorporate these formatters
if any are available in the public domain and integrate them in?

-- Peter