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From: pcolmer@acorn.co.uk (Philip Colmer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: internal error 5
Message-ID: <4803@acorn.co.uk>
Date: 28 Jan 91 07:57:08 GMT
References: <1991Jan26.150347.10596@ugle.unit.no>
Sender: pcolmer@acorn.co.uk
Distribution: comp
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England
Lines: 27

In article <1991Jan26.150347.10596@ugle.unit.no> dhmyrdal@solan.unit.no (Dag H}kon Myrdal) writes:

>It seems to be Acorn's idea that an abstract, non-informing error-message
>like "Internal error #" is better (more professional?) than simply
>stating what the problem seemed to be!!!
>Mostly when I have got errors like this, memory is short...
>So, why doesn't the programs say so??? (or better still: give a warning first...
>Impression is good at this, it gives you the option of trying to cope...)

First of all, the number given is actually the C signal number, so 3 is
illegal instruction (normally caused by attempting to using floating point
without FPE loaded) and 5 is a bad memory access ... could be practically
anything really :-)

Secondly, Impression is no longer good at this. All of the pseudo programmer
messages have been replaced by cryptic codes like "Internal error GT3 has
occurred".

Basically, it comes down to the fact that once a program has suffered a
really bad problem, there isn't an awful lot that can be done to recover
from it, so it is best to exit cleanly and not run the risk of stamping on
anything else.

--Philip Colmer

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