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From: stephen@oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Steve Whitney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: a "translator" for STe?
Keywords: TOS translator
Message-ID: <36782@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 6 Jul 90 00:56:44 GMT
References: <1433@nyx.UUCP>
Sender: news@CS.UCLA.EDU
Distribution: usa
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 36

In article <1433@nyx.UUCP> mmiller@nyx.UUCP (Mark Thomas Miller) writes:
>
[stuff deleted]
>I think it would be a good idea if Atari put out an older version of TOS
>(like ver. 1.0 or 1.4) on disk, that would take over as the ST OS, so that
>those programs that do not run on the STe (particularly games, as has been
>mentioned) CAN be run, because the characteristics that those programs
>take advantage of will be there, in the RAM OS.  Of course, all the 
>advantages of the newer OS will not be there, but if you want to run an
>old program on your new computer, it could be the only way, unless you
>want to wait until the software company comes out with a newer version
>of the program you want, which in some cases is very unlikely.
>
>mmiller@nyx

I don't think that this would accomplish anything.  The most common reason for
programs that work with TOS 1.4 to fail under TOS 1.6 is that the ROMs are in
a different part o fthe 68000's address space.  If code assumes that it will
find the base of the operating system where it always was in the past, it will
fail, and with a translator disk, the operating system would _still_ not be in
the correct place.  In fact, since there isn't any RAM where the operating 
system used to be, you can't do what you want to without a hardware modi-
fication.  I'm sue games will be fixed soon since there are so many STEs
flooding out into the world now.  All we need is a Mega STE now...

Disclaimer: There probably _are_ programs that fail under TOS 1.6 because
they special case each version of the operating system.  You might fix these,
but the big problem is the new OS address.

		Steve

--
Steve Whitney   "It's never _really_ the last minute"       (())_-_(())
UCLA Comp. Sci. Grad. Student                                | (* *) | 
Internet: stephen@cs.ucla.edu              UCLA Bruin-->    {  \_@_/  }
GEnie:    S.WHITNEY                                           `-----'