What is an HFS disc?

HFS is the Macintosh's Hierarchical Filing System. It is unrelated to High Sierra and ISO-9660 formats. Most CD-ROMs intended for the Macintosh are created in the HFS format, since HFS supports the Mac's resource and data forks and file information.

The freely distributable filing system AmiCDROM is able to read HFS disks on an Amiga. AmiCDROM is freeware, and is available by anonymous FTP from any Aminet site, including ftp.cdrom.com in the directory /pub/aminet/disk/cdrom. The Aminet archive is also available on CDROM for $29.95 from Walnut Creek CDROM, 1-800-786-9907, info@cdrom.com.

There are drivers made by AsimWare (AsimCDFS) and Xetec that allows HFS discs to be read on an Amiga. There is a list of differences that the drivers contends with, such as non-standard characters and 32 character filenames (Amiga supports only 30).

"New Inside Macintosh: Files" published by Addison-Wesley, has the most complete description of HFS format.

Inside Macintosh: Files
By Apple Computer, Inc.
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company
ISBN 0-201-63244-6
In Chapter 2, the section on "Data Organization on Volumes" pages 2-52 to 2-76 contains as complete a description of HFS as is available.

This book can be ordered from APDA (Apple Programmers & Developers Association) or any bookstore.

APDA
P.O. Box 319
Buffalo, NY 14207-0319
1-800-282-2732 U.S.
1-800-637-0029 Canada
(716) 871-6555 International
(716) 871-6511 Fax
AppleLink APDA
America Online APDA
CompuServe 76666,2405
Internet APDA@applelink.apple.com


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For Information, contact Ken Cheney