Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!sun-barr!sun!imagen!atari!kbad From: kbad@atari.UUCP (Ken Badertscher) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Version Number Confusion Summary: Don't use OS dates. Don't use OS dates. Don't use OS dates. Message-ID: <1559@atari.UUCP> Date: 13 Jun 89 21:23:11 GMT References: <8906121449.AA01174@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <5440035@hplsla.HP.COM> Reply-To: kbad@atari.UUCP (Ken Badertscher) Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale, CA Lines: 37 In article <5440035@hplsla.HP.COM> andyc@hplsla.HP.COM (Andy Cassino) writes: | | | | Unfortunately, most software checks the version | | date. For example, the ICD hard disk driver knows about the Beta ROM date, | | but fails to recognize my 1.4 version, which is dated Feb 22, 1989. | | | | Yikes! Does this mean that my ICD host adaptor won't work with TOS 1.4 until | I get a new rev of ICDBOOT??? ICD did A Bad Thing. Actually 2 bad things. First, they shouldn't have released ANY software that relied on ANY Beta TOS releases. All developers who got early releases of the latest TOS were warned and foresworn not to base any software on any features of the intermediate release; we sent it out to allow them to test their existing software. DON'T BASE ANYTHING IN YOUR SOFTWARE ON INTERMEDIATE OS RELEASES. Second, they shouldn't have based anything on the date of the TOS ROMs. As I have said before, there are three supported OS releases; ROM TOS, Mega TOS, and the one that is forthcoming. Each has a different OS version number in the OS header. ROM TOS and Mega TOS have the same GEMDOS version number, because GEMDOS didn't change between those OS revisions. What's worse, dates in the OS header will vary from country to country, so by checking OS header dates, you not only make your software version dependant, you make it country dependant as well. USE THE OS VERSION NUMBER, NOT THE OS DATE, IF YOU MUST CHECK OS VERSIONS. 'nuff said. -- ||| Ken Badertscher (ames!atari!kbad) ||| Atari R&D System Software Engine / | \ #include