Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!nih-csl!lhc!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: ProDOS Updates: Why?
Message-ID: <14248@smoke.brl.mil>
Date: 26 Oct 90 05:28:45 GMT
References: <0.chatter.infoapple@pro-beagle>
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
Lines: 18

In article <0.chatter.infoapple@pro-beagle> gbvienna@pro-beagle.cts.com (George Brownstone) writes:
>     While I assume that the newer versions of ProDOS 
>represent advances of some sort, what are they, what are 
>their practical implications, and is it important or useful 
>for an ordinary computer user, like myself, to know?

The changes are documented in a Apple Technical Note, and generally
consist of bug fixes and support for new hardware features of later
models of Apple II.  These days, GS/OS and ProDOS-8 have to coordinate
closely, so some changes are probably inspired by that need.

Early versions of ProDOS would sometimes clobber track 0 (typically)
of a floppy, so later versions that have that bug fixed are advised.

>     The same questions apply re BASIC.SYSTEM updates.

Pretty much the same answers.  The most recent patch to BASIC fixed a
horrible bug that could cause unwanted truncation of files.