Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!usc!apple!well!dsmall
From: dsmall@well.UUCP (David Small)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Prodigy run under Spectre GCR?
Keywords: Prodigy Spectre 128
Message-ID: <14886@well.UUCP>
Date: 10 Dec 89 00:15:13 GMT
References: <872@lzaz.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: dsmall@well.UUCP (David Small)
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 35


The base question asks if Mac Prodigy online software runs on Spectre.
[I hope no one minds me quickly summarizing the question like this,
rather than quoting 15 lines with indenting. If I'm breaking a custom,
let me know, okay? I'm no USENET whiz].

	Right now, at this second, at present, not in the future,
Prodigy doesn't work on the Spectre. The reason is that it is closely tied
to the Mac hardware architecture, and breaks numerous Mac programming rules.
For instance, it "lives" at IPL=7 (the eyebrows of everyone at Atari just
went up) and thus ignores keyboard interrupts. We've spent quite some time
chasing it with the Zax incircuit emulator, since nothing else can
penetrate it.

	That's the bad news. The good news is that it DOES work on the AMAX
if you hack a memory location. If memory serves, you need to change _SCSIflag
to $80. (Memory may not serve -- I would call ReadySoft). This means it
has to be very close to working on Spectre.

	So please don't take this to mean it will never work. For all I know,
it may come up tomorrow. In fact, I think it's time for me to give Simon
Douglas at AMAX a call, and see if he can tell me what's wrong....

	We will announce it when it starts working.

	-- thanks, Dave / Gadgets by Small

p.s. I've wondered if the numerous replies I write are getting obnoxious to
other Net users, many of which could care less about Mac emulation. Those
I can answer by mail, I do, but many are of public interest and need
posting here. Would you prefer if I "batched them up" and answered several
questions at once? Of course, that would break the subject thread that "rn"
uses ...  any other solutions / suggestions / comments are more than welcome!

	Send to the above address ...