PowerDOS

Fast Disk Access

I was reading through Atari ST Review #32, and I came upon an interesting tidbit about a public domain tool called PowerDOS. I had never heard of this, but it sounded interesting and potentially useful.

The slowest part of any computer is the hard drive, and whilst this might not matter as much for Ultrasatan, there is still a benefit to be had with the Atari ST computers. Basically, PowerDOS is for GEMDOS what NVDI/QuickST/Warp9 are for the VDI components of TOS. It replaces several of GEMDOS's file handling routines with efficient equivalents, thus reducing overhead during common disk operations.

Although PowerDOS originally appeared when mechanical hard drives were common, it can still offer benefits on modern solid-state devices such as UltraSatan. The storage itself may already be fast, but GEMDOS still performs like a sluggish old bike pedalling through mud. PowerDOS can make your ST feel a little more responsive, particularly in applications that access the disk frequently.

Installation is as simple as copying the program into your AUTO folder and rebooting (you may need to use DirSort). My ST has TOS 1.04 and works fine with Warp9 and other AUTO PRGs. The speed improvements are very nice: Try loading up CAB or JAM (with all their plugins enabled).

I love tinkering with my ST, and utilities like PowerDOS are amazing. Give it a try and see how you get on - let me know in the comments. The download is available from Atari-Forum (with credit to Mark_G & bj)