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| Dos Menu | Double Space / Drive Space In DOS | Full screen |
What's The Minimum Needed?dblspace.bin dblspace.000 dblspace.ini The dblspace.000 is the Compressed Volume File (CVF) and can be on any drive. This file could be dblspace.001 or another number up to 009, if it will not be taking over the drive letter of the host drive. The above are for Doublespace where the C drive is compressed.
Replace dblspace with drvspace if you are running Drivespace. The dblspace.bin and dblspace.ini must be in the root of the boot drive (real C drive). The dblspace.ini contains the location (drive letter) of the CVF. If these are correct, the CVF will automatically be mounted when the computer boots, whether by floppy disk boot or by making the real C drive bootable. If the drive is bootable, the only files needed are: Although command.com may be here also, it is not required here, nor would it be found here once the drive mounts. The command.com file must be on the compressed drive. If not, you will get a request for the location of the command processor when you boot.
The dblspace.bin is loaded by the IO.SYS if the dblspace.ini gives the correct instructions. This will use about 50kb of memory. Since this is loaded before any config.sys file drivers are loaded, it will be in Conventional Memory. In the config.sys file you have all of the normal commands to load devices that you would without compression. By adding the line: |
Command Line Control Of Doublespace/Drivespace
The commands are:
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STORING A DOUBLESPACE OR DRIVESPACE FILEThe program will create a file named dblspace.000 through dblspace.009 if the program is DOS 6.0 though DOS 6.20 or Windows 95a, and drvspace.000 through drvspace.009 if the program is DOS 6.22 or Windows 95b and later. When unmounted it is just a file. The program hides the files by adding the R,H and S attributes.You can copy these files to a subdirectory for storage. If the CV file is dblspace.001, you could copy it to c:\games\game-01.dbl. Now you can delete the files on the mounted drive and put a different game on the compressed drive. Unmount the drive with the new game on it and store it as c:\games\game-02.dbl. Keeping track of which game is on which file, you can copy the file you want to the root as dblspace.001. Now mount the drive to run that game or program stored on it. After you have created the Compressed drive the file will use about half of the size the file actually is. After you load the game files you can reduce the size to what the game needs. If you store that game in this compressed state you would like it to uses the least space on your drive.
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Creating A Compressed RAMDISK with DOS 6.0 & 6.2
Instead, In your C:\ directory you should find the file DBLSPACE.BIN. You will have to type:
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| While these disks may report a capacity twice what the disk space they use is, that depends on how compressible the game or program files are. The process can be time consuming as well. If you create a compressed file on a hard disk or floppy, it will test the disk first. If you are doing this it is best to Defrag the drive first. This allows the file to be in one continuous space on the drive. This speeds the access to the file for reading and writing. It also protects the file from cross linking. You can create a CVF (Compressed Volume File) on a Ramdisk quickly. Once created you can copy the unmounted file to a hard disk. Again, the disk should be Defragmented first. You can Change the size of the file once it is on the Hard drive. This is usually much faster than creating a large Compressed disk on the hard drive. Since the Ramdisk is so fast (and empty), the whole process can take less than a minute. | ||
| 1) | At the DOS Prompt type DBLSPACE and press Enter. The program will search all drives for existing DOUBLESPACE files. It will then display what files are loaded, if any. | |
| 2) | Press the the Alt Key then select Compress. | |
| 3) | Select Create New Drive from the menu. | |
| 4) | Move to the line with the drive letter for the Ramdisk and press Enter. | |
| 5) | With the Arrow Keys move to the line that says "free space to leave on" (and the Drive letter of the Ramdisk), | |
| 6) | Press Enter. 2.00 will be highlighted. Change that to .13 then press Enter. | |
| 7) | Select continue and press Enter. | |
| 8) | Press C to create the new drive. After the drive is created the screen returns with the new drive mounted. | |
| 9) | Press the Alt Key Then D and X to exit the program. | |
DOS 6.22With DOS 6.22, it is called Drivespace. Use the same procedure as for DOS 6.0 & 6.2 substituting the word DRVSPACE for DBLSPACE. | ||
WINDOWS 95Windows 95a uses Doublespace although the program is called Drivespace. With Windows 95 you create the disk and mount it within Windows. Unfortunately, if the game can only run in a DOS environment, there is no way to mount the drive in DOS to allow you to access to the compressed drive outside of Windows. The only way would be to automount the drive at boot. This could be accomplished with Boot Icons and Batch files.NOTE: A DBLSPACE.INI file will be created and hidden. Unless you have permanent Doublespace Drives set up, I recommend deleting this file as I sometimes get errors with it loaded. Windows 95 will be able to load the Doublespace files with out this file. It is created when you compress, mount or resize a drive.
If you choose to delete the file you might prefer to make a copy of it first. I change the INI to INN.
To copy the DBLSPACE.INI file type:
To delete the DBLSPACE.INI file, you will have to remove the attributes as shown above. Next type: To add the Attributes change the Minus sign to a Plus sign. Windows will automatically hide the file if it updates the file. You can adjust the doublespace file down in size to the minimum you need for the game. Then copy the compressed file to the hard drive or a zip disk for storage. When you want to run the game, copy the file to the Ramdisk then mount the Doublespace file. You can save several different games in separate Doublespace files such as DBLSPACE.001, DBLSPACE.002 etc. Then you can load the game you want when you want to play it. |
RESIZING A DOUBLESPACE OR DRIVESPACE FILE
Using A Ramdisk To Resizing A Doublespace Or Drivespace FileDepending on how many files and directories the game uses and how often you play it there are a couple of methods for storing it. | |
| 1. | If the game is over 32mb in size you would have to use a Doublespaced Ramdisk to play it. So, the easiest way is to save the CVF when your not playing it. You can use batch files to load the game when you want to play, and save the game when you quit. |
| 2. | If the game has a lot of subdirectories and/or files even if it is small it would be easier to handle one CVF than loading the files and subdirectories on the Ramdisk. I would use Doublespace for this type of game also. |
| 3. | If the game has relatively few files and/or directories or you want the minimum storage space you can get when your not playing the game, use the PKZIP and PKUNZIP utilities to store the game files. You can use the same batch file for this. |
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