Research spike: port Infinite Mac's runtime disk add/remove patch to native BasiliskII

[bryanwintermute]

Background

Native BasiliskII has only static disk lines in prefs — disks are fixed at startup. Infinite Mac's browser-based fork supports dynamic disk loading at runtime (their "Mac Library" feature lets the user pick disks on demand and they appear instantly without restart). Their fork must have patched the disk-mount machinery.

If we can port their patches, multiple chimebox UX problems become tractable:

• USB sticks could mount as real Mac volumes (each its own volume with its own icon, drag-to-Trash to eject)
• Library disks could swap in/out at runtime
• "Insert this floppy" UX becomes natural

Scope

1. Find their patches in third_party/infinite-mac/src/emulator/
2. Assess porting effort to our native (non-browser) BasiliskII build
3. Determine what API surface it would expose to host-side scripts (named pipe? unix socket?)
4. Design doc + go/no-go decision

Outcome

One of:

• Port the patch — biggest UX win; ship a custom BasiliskII build via the basiliskii Ansible role
• Write similar from scratch — if their patch is too browser-specific
• Live with the extfs sub-folder approach — and just solve the per-sub-folder UX via icons + hotkeys

Related

• Patch BasiliskII to allow custom extfs volume name (default Unix → Outside World) #4 (rename "Unix" volume) — same custom-build chain
• Custom Outside World icon for extfs volume #5 — same custom-build chain
• USB safe-eject via Mac Trash drag (mirror standard Mac UX) #3 — would benefit from this