Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!sun-barr!newstop!sun!imagen!atari!towns
From: towns@atari.UUCP (John Townsend)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: ROM disassembly for TOS 1.4
Message-ID: <1666@atari.UUCP>
Date: 30 Aug 89 21:34:22 GMT
References: <9401@chinet.chi.il.us>
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 40

in article <9401@chinet.chi.il.us>, saj@chinet.chi.il.us (Stephen Jacobs) says:
> 
> One of the more useful tools in programming the ST is the commented ROM
> disassembly in the Abacus ST Internals book (English translation of the
> corresponding Data Becker book, I think, but I'm usually wrong).  

I disagree completely. People should use the documented OS calls. They 
shouldn't fumble around inside the Operating System looking for calls and 
data structures that weren't intended for their use.

>    And a small love-note to the Atari contingent: IBM did it, even though
> some of them must nearly have died doing it: they published a complete,
> official ROM disassembly.  Many developers did exactly what you don't want
> us to do: they exploited internal code and data structures.  Their code
> broke when new DOS versions used the ROM code differently.  Some of them
> learned their lesson.  Near-clone ROMs took more victims.  But on balance,
> I think you'll find pretty nearly complete agreement that the published
> ROM code has helped the PC.  An Atari-authorized, commented disassembly of
> TOS 1.4 as of a given date (say the delivery date of the first production 
> lot?) would help programmers enormously.
>                                 Steve J.

I can't believe what I am hearing! You state my case for me. Programmers 
depended on the things they read in the IBM disassembly and when things 
changed their code broke! Isn't that a good enough reason for not releasing
disassembled or source versions of sections of the Operating System? 

My job at Atari is support. I am one of the people that has to take calls 
from irate customers that are mad because their favorite program breaks on
their new computer (with MEGA TOS ROMs) and I am the one that has to tell 
them that it's because the manufacturer of the software didn't follow the 
rules when writing his/her program. Most of the time, Atari gets the blame 
(in the customer's eyes) for these problems with software, when in reality
it's the software that is at fault.

Anyway, there's my position on disassembled versions of TOS.


-- John Townsend					ames!atari!towns
   Atari Corporation