Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!hal!nic.MR.NET!ns!logajan
From: logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: ROM disassembly for TOS -- A suggestion.
Message-ID: <1642@ns.network.com>
Date: 11 Sep 89 18:48:18 GMT
References: <8909091247.AA16274@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <9531@chinet.chi.il.us> <9542@chinet.chi.il.us>
Sender: logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan)
Organization: Network Systems Corp. Mpls MN
Lines: 33

saj@chinet.chi.il.us (Stephen Jacobs) writes:
> logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) writes:
> > You want to sell TOS 1.4 disassembled and commented code, but you want to
> > avoid copyright hassels with Atari.  The answer is that you don't need to
> > sell the TOS 1.4 listing because every perspective customer already has a
> > computer readable copy available to him (and your niffy little program.)

> > ERGO, all you do is sell a customized disassebler which has tables of
> > mnemonic labels and comments -- what all -- and your customer has to run
> > it on his machine to generate his own listings.

> I don't know what developer documentation John Logajan has, but nothing that
> I've gotten or been promised would be much help with a disassembly.

This may be true.  I though that one of the Atari guys had said that developers
get copies of the source code.  But now that I think about the whole
discussion, maybe that assumption doesn't make a lot of sense.  Sorry.

By the way, I have a lot of faith (experience, actually) in the level of
programming ability by ST ower/developers.  I believe that if one of these guys
wanted to develop such a product, he could do a credible job.

The only problem I see is the fickelness of Atari.  After the guy spends months
on the project they might just up and decide to release the source code.

I think it is unlikely, however, that they will release more than the BIOS
part, such as appears in the ST Internals book by Abacus.  (old ROM code.)



-- 
- John M. Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428  -
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