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From: chucks@pnet51.orb.mn.org (Erik Funkenbusch)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: Why Amiga Gurus????
Message-ID: <3961@orbit.cts.com>
Date: 1 Feb 91 09:25:07 GMT
Sender: news@orbit.cts.com
Organization: People-Net [pnet51], Minneapolis, MN.
Lines: 59

daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes:
>In article <1991Jan31.035105.14277@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> nnn@po.CWRU.Edu (Nik N. Nik Mahdi) writes:
>
>>   You know, I have been wondering about my Amiga, which sometimes
>>gurus when I run certain softwares. I wonder what's wrong with
>>it. Is it the computer system, or is it the software that causes
>>it to Guru? 
>
>Unless you have hardware problems, these crashes are caused by bugs in your
>application programs.

It's funny that you mention hardware problems.  One of my Amiga's (my first.
the 500) has had a weird problem since i bought it.  every so often the screen
will get random grabage thrown into it.  this will sometimes be re-coverable
but often times not.  it is almost as if the blitter is going haywire. 
throwing data every which way.  this usually happens with jr-comm (i know..
but it never happens on my 2500) but i have had it happen without even running
jr-comm.  I also have a problem with the red raster draining ever time the
disk accesses.  by draining i mean the red color noticably dims.  any
suggestions?

>
>>Why doesn't it happen to other computer systems, like IBM or Macintosh 
>>(sometimes I got "System Error" on Mac, is it the same as the "Guru 
>>Meditation" on Amiga?).
>
>Well, it does happen on other system.  Only, many other systems aren't robust
>enough to realize that a program has done something wrong, so they either
>keep going, or simply freeze up.  From my experience, the "System Error" on
>the Mac is more like the "System Error -- Task Held" response from the Amiga;
>the OS has found a program doing something wrong, but it wasn't a catastrophe.
>When a severe bug hits on the Mac, it usually just freezes up.  On the Amiga,
>a severe bug usually causes a GURU (or SYSTEM ERROR in 2.0) type error message.

This reminds me.  a friend tells me that the machine recovers much more often
from crashes under 2.0.  what did you guys do to make this happen?
>
>>Thus, can someone explain this to me. Why the software developer
>>(if it is their fault!) didn't do anything to avoid this?
>
>Generally the software developer never found the problem.  Occasionally, such
>bugs are dependent on aspects of different systems -- what kind of CPU, memory,
>etc. you're using.  Of course, at other times, you find that some developers
>are simply too lazy or rush to market too fast to do proper testing.

All too true....

>
>
>
>-- 
>Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
>   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: hazy     BIX: hazy
>	"What works for me might work for you"	-Jimmy Buffett


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