Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hoptoad!tim
From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Tail patches
Message-ID: <9010@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 17 Nov 89 19:52:37 GMT
References: <5212@internal.Apple.COM> <32982@mirror.UUCP>
Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco
Lines: 31

I think a key point is being missed in the tail patching discussion.
The amount of extra RAM that would be required for Apple to do its ROM
patches without breaking tail patches is not all that large; perhaps
64K above the amount of patches in place now.  We're about to enter a
year when 2M will be the standard amount of RAM on a Mac, and 64K is
sustainable with that much RAM.  This would be a boon to both
developers and users, as it would make a new class of reliable products
available.

It would also be nice if Apple would make new ROMs widely available.
That would be a complete solution to the problem.  ROMs are easier
to change than SIMMs, after all.

And by the way -- I wrote a silly INIT called Backdrop some three years
ago, before I knew about tail patching being a bad idea.  In all that
time, I have yet to see any problem with the software that results from
its tail patching of the Fill routines.  So remember -- tail patching
is a risk, but depending on what you're doing, it may be an acceptable
risk.

(And no, don't ask me for a new version of Backdrop.  I don't use it,
and I don't work on it, and I consider it obsoleted by MultiFinder.)
-- 
Tim Maroney, Mac Software Consultant, sun!hoptoad!tim, tim@toad.com

"A book is the product of a contract with the Devil that inverts the Faustian
 contract, he'd told Allie.  Dr Faustus sacrificed eternity in return for two
 dozen years of power; the writer agrees to the ruination of his life, and
 gains (but only if he's lucky) maybe not eternity, but posterity, at least.
 Either way (this was Jumpy's point) it's the Devil who wins."
	-- Salman Rushdie, THE SATANIC VERSES