Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!nemeth From: nemeth@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Gabe Nemeth) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Shareware MAC Message-ID: <1989Dec6.222827.16338@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> Date: 6 Dec 89 22:28:27 GMT References: <89120107511652@masnet.uucp> Organization: University of Toronto Computing Services Lines: 36 In article portuesi@sgi.com (Michael Portuesi) writes: >>>>>> On 29 Nov 89 14:30:00 GMT, greg.trice@canremote.uucp (GREG TRICE) said: > >greg> Why does everybody assume that a Mac emulator has to use Mac ROMs or any >greg> Mac code at all? There are an infinite number of ways to do a given job >greg> and it is perfectly possible for somebody to carefully read all the Mac >greg> documentation and then sit down and write code that will do exactly the >greg> same job as the Mac roms, but have not a byte in common with them in >greg> code. This is the situation with most IBM compatible systems. Though >greg> they are functionally identical to the IBM product, their ROMs contain >greg> different, but functionally identical code. >greg> It should be perfectly possible to produce a Mac emulator that used no >greg> ROMs at all, but was wholly disk based (given sufficient memory to hold >greg> the quondam ROM code in RAM). > > >Go ahead and try...I'll see you in a few years. > >The Apple ROMS are the result of several hundred person-years of work, >and you expect one enterprising hacker to recode them, and do all >of the testing and revising to ensure even a reasonable amount of >compatibilty? Obviously you've never developed software for a living. > > --M >-- >__ >\/ Michael Portuesi Silicon Graphics Computer Systems, Inc. > portuesi@SGI.COM Entry Systems Division -- Engineering > >He says, "Take me to your leader" -- and I say, "Do you mean....George?" One thing a lot of people don't realize is that the amount of necessary code in the roms is quite small. Thats because the system file contains patches to the different revisions of mac roms that overlay buggy or outdated code. So - all the roms have to contain is stuff found in the basic 64k roms. /leonard