Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Distribution: world
From: Jonathan_Rochkind@laison.w8hd.org
Organization: L'AISON - Local Area Information Server Open Network
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 21:36:33 EDT
Subject: Re: Super tiny "System" file?

> Any hints on what else I can cut from the System file without making it go
> BOOM? What's the smallest you've ever gotten a 6.0.x system to be?

Okay, the following was captured locally from a message with the header:

From: rrr@duck.svl.cdc.com (Rich Ragan)
Subject: Building a Sys7 Emergency Disk 
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 92 14:12:54 PST 
The following description should probably go into the archives
rather than just be a one time posting.
Thanks, Rich Ragan (rrr@svl.cdc.com)

I'm not sure where it came from originally, but now that I have attributed my
source, here is an excerpt which might help you out:

[do the following to a system installed under choice "minimum configuration"
by installer, such as the one on Disk Tools, and the idea is that this is an
emergency system only, with a disk recovery utility on it, and not even the
finder.]

8) Now you are ready to put the Minimal System file on the floppy onto
   a "quick weight loss diet". You will need ResEdit to do this. Start
   up ResEdit and delete the following resources types/numbers from
   the Minimal System file. If you don't know how to use ResEdit, find
   someone who does (i.e., kids don't try this without adult supervision).

   The essence of the shrinking procedure is that there is a lot of good
   stuff in the System that is not needed when more pressing things are
   going on (like recovering a crashed hard disk). Therefore, you will
   delete these nice but superfluous parts of the Minimal System file.
   The following list of resource type and numbers appear to be safely
   deletable for a minimum system. Don't try to construct a system you
   run everyday this way. For example, transcendantal functions are
   deleted (hopefully no disk recovery packages needed to compute sines).
   Ranges of resources to delete are separated by a colon.

   Major space gains come from deleting the AppleTalk DRVR's and the
   packages (PACK 5, and 9-15). For example, PACK 14 is the Balloon
   Help stuff. Each PACK owns other resources which can be removed
   after the PACK is gone. The owner of a resource can be seen by
   selecting the resource and doing a get resource info. Thus if you
   have deleted PACK 14 you can safely delete all resources it owns
   (like hdlg, hmnu, DITL, DLOG, etc.). Of course you must not try to
   use balloon help after that. Rather than make you think about it
   here is a list of things you can delete to build a minimum system.
   You may not have all the things that are in the list depending on 
   which machine you built the minimum system for. 

ALRT      -16407:-16406       -5758
DITL &    -32512:-32509       -16492:-16491       -16483: -16482      
DLOG      -16409              -16407:-16406       -5856
          -5792:-5786         -5760               -5758               
          -5696
DRVR      .DSP .MPP .XPP .ATP
FKEY      all
hdlg      all
hmnu      all
icl4      all
ics#      all but 16386 (Apple Icon)
ics4      all
ICON      -16492:-16487
ics8      all
PACK      9:15 and 5 (if present)
PICT      -16482:-16485       -5790     -5789     -5760     
          -5696:-5694
STR       -16410:-16409       -5786
STR#      -16985    -16491    -16484:-16482       -16413
          -16411    -16409:-16408       -6079     -6045
          -5856     -5792:--5787        -5759     -5696
          -4096

9) After quitting from Resedit and saving the changes you
   should have a floppy with a lot of space on it. Now put
   your Disk Recovery utility on this disk as well. Rename
   the Disk Recovery Utility to have the name Finder. It will
   now be run immediately when you boot from this floppy since
   it is thought to be the normal Finder.
[end quote]
not sure if that has anything to do with what you were wondering, but hope it
helped someone.

* The views expressed in this posting are those of the author!
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system