On Sat, 16 Dec 1995, Shawn Pearce wrote:

> Yes, and since the mac will _NOT_ boot to anything other than an HFS
> partition with a blessed system folder, this is the closest way to boot
> without making a "fake" macOS.  Way to hard - I'd never ask for that do be
> done.
> 
> I'm trying to get the info on how to make an app into a "finder" that could
> just overwrite the existing one.  (Like a MacTools/Norton emergency disk).
> When I do, i'll fix up a booter that will do this.

AFAIK, most of them just delete the finder file and leave only one 
program on the disk, which is then the one that gets launched.  If you 
really want to try something, take a simple program, rename it Finder, 
put it on disk with a minimal system file for your system (the Disk Tools 
disk would probably be a good source), and, using Resedit, change the 
file type to FNDR and the creator to MACS.  Then, see if it'll boot.  If 
it did, you're all set.  If not, we know that something else is different.

BTW as for a blessed system folder, I believe that Macs will boot with a 
system file on the root directory if there is no System folder.  Don't 
quote me on that, but last time I looked at somebody's Norton Emergency 
Disk, it had disk doctor and a system file and maybe an enabler or two.  
No finder, no system folder, nothing.  Talk about cutting space.... :-)

The system file has to have the right file type and creator and probably 
has to be openable as a suitcase, but I'm not sure about the last part.  
The closer you can get to making the booter look like a suitcase, the 
better.

I think that the disk could basically be blank except for a suitcase 
containing the booter program code.  However much space that takes.  I 
don't have a copy of the booter onhand, but count on increasing it by a 
good chunk to make it a suitcase.

Here's something someone could try.  Just take an empty System suitcase 
from the one on the old system 7.0.1 intall disk (almost empty) and 
kill the code resources.  Then paste in a copy of a simple program that 
doesn't use any MacOS calls, and see what happens.  I *think* that might 
work.  Not ure.  I think I'm gonna try it just to see....

Later,

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