Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!yale!mintaka!wookumz.ai.mit.edu!rjc From: rjc@wookumz.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Re: Help --> How to prevent the visit from the dreaded guru Keywords: Flip answers are no help Message-ID: <1991Jan6.032929.1813@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> Date: 6 Jan 91 03:29:29 GMT References: <17130@cbmvax.commodore.com> <7465@sugar.hackercorp.com> <17133@cbmvax.commodore.com> Sender: daemon@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu (Lucifer Maleficius) Organization: None Lines: 50 On a side note Randell, how difficult would it be to add Resource Tracking to the Amiga? Couldn't each library's close routine make sure all resources are freed when a Task exits? I get really tired when poor programs forget to free a Lock() or Memory. (XOper to the rescue) It would also be nice to 'kill' a process and have it automaticly free itself. Consider this: 'KILL HandShake' Dos.Library's KillProcess() call does a sanity check, then proceeds to close all the libraries said process had open. (I assume OpenLibrary maintains a list and attacks it to the task) Each of the libraries/devices free the resources from their close() routines. Poof! HandShake is UnLoadSeg'd and all its resources have been cleaned up by the libraries themselves. Virtual Memory shouldn't be a problem either. The OS merely checks for the presence of an MMU and enables virtual mem (for FAST mem. Its impossible to protect Chip mem from the blitter. And I can't imagine a machine with an MMU that doesn't have fast ram) MMU Protection. I'm fairly certain AmyDOS will never get Unix style protection because of the shared-memory paradigm. But how about this . AllocMem(blah,MEMF_PRIVATE) Programs could request private memory for their data structures and use Allocate/DeAllocate to manage it. This would cut down on programs stomping on valuable data, so a GURU could atleast exit with a warning 'Please save all data, then reboot' I have no problems with Software Error requesters. I like them. I can save my data/finish a download, then reboot. Or if developing, suspend the task, recompile, and try again. GURUs aren't so forgiving. They offer only 1 choice. Reboot immediately. Also. Alot of errors aren't fatal (Like FreeMem twice, etc) its the 0003/4 errors you have to watch out for (meaning a task when wild stomping thru memory) I think FreeMemtwice type of errors should put up a warning ('Task A went nutso, data may be corrupt, Wanna Reboot?') Three more questions. 1) Has layers library been speeded up/reworked? It gets really slow when there are lots of open windows on the screen. 2) What happens when you pull down a screen (on 2.0) and a productivety mode screen is behind it? Can monitors actually handle scan rate changes mid screen? (15khz <-> 31khz) 3) Was file notification/record locking ever added to the 2.0 FS? Thanks in Advance. (I don't have 2.0)