Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!bu.edu!dartvax!quimby!kurash
From: kurash@quimby.dartmouth.edu (Mark Valence)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: doing real work at interrupt
Summary: Notification
Message-ID: <25483@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: 1 Nov 90 17:42:15 GMT
References: <1990Oct30.152816.2172@cs.umu.se> <2303@heavens-gate.lucid.com>
Sender: news@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU
Reply-To: kurash@quimby (Mark Valence)
Organization: Dartmouth College
Lines: 22

I think what you are looking for is the Notification
Manager.  The routines _NMInstall and _NMRemove are
both accessible during interrupt time, so your interrupt
can place a (pre-allocated) NMRec onto the notification
queue.  One of the fields of this record is nmCompletion,
which is a ProcPtr to a procedure to run.  This proc is
executed during SystemTask, so it can allocate more
memory, dispose stuff, draw to the screen, POST A MESSAGE,
oooh, lot's of good stuff.  See Tech Note #184.

About using NewPtr, NewHandle, DisposXxx during interrupts:
Why don't you just allocate a bunch of memory at INIT time
(when you install your interrupt routine), and do your own
memory management?  I mean, it doesn't buy you anything tos
use handles in this circumstance, and pointers are not very
hard to implement (I mean the pointer routines aren't hard).
This way, you could even optimize your allocation/deallocation
routines to suit your exact purposes (maybe ever block is
the same size, maybe allocated blocks are deallocated in
FIFO order, etc.)

Mark.