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From: kbad@atari.UUCP (Ken Badertscher)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Comments on STE -- (un)known facts
Message-ID: <1871@atari.UUCP>
Date: 8 Dec 89 21:47:40 GMT
References: <2310@pkmab.se> <370002@acf5.NYU.EDU> <2348@pkmab.se> <1842@atari.UUCP> <881@per2.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 36

dag@per2.UUCP (Daniel A. Glasser) writes:

| I'm glad that you folks have finally caught up with 1982 in that area [...]

Thank you for slamming us about something which you admit you don't
know about.

| Will the "Cookie Jar" ever appear in a revision to TOS for the older machines?

Not necessary.  It's not a function call, it's a service provided by
the startup code, and it isn't necessary on existing machines, because
the services they provide are known.  It is possible for people with
exotic devices on older machines to have the drivers for said devices
install a cookie jar in the auto folder, for example.

| Is there a reasonable way to detect that there is no cookie jar on a machine
| which a program can use?

Yes.  If the new system variable which points to the Cookie Jar is
zero, you're on an old machine.

| If calling this function on an older OS causes a
| buss error or similar unpredictable or unacceptable behavior, I'll be VERY
| dissapointed.

(Warning, sarcasm ahead)
As everyone knows well from following this news group, it is always our
policy when enhancing the OS to make it as incompatible as we can.  If
it was hard to code, it should be hard to use.  It was a tough decision
to leave out of the Cookie Jar spec the feature which would have caused
the machine to reboot on older TOS versions, but somehow we resisted
the temptation.
-- 
   |||   Ken Badertscher  (ames!atari!kbad)
   |||   Atari R&D System Software Engine
  / | \  #include <disclaimer>