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From: thaanuj@prism.cs.orst.edu (John Thaanum)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: problems with pd game 'Goldrunner'
Message-ID: <1991Mar15.032527.29655@lynx.CS.ORST.EDU>
Date: 15 Mar 91 03:25:27 GMT
References: <1991Mar13.044006.11292@lynx.CS.ORST.EDU> <40117@cup.portal.com>
Sender: @lynx.CS.ORST.EDU
Reply-To: thaanuj@prism.CS.ORST.EDU (John Thaanum)
Organization: Oregon State Univ. -- Computer Science
Lines: 41
Nntp-Posting-Host: prism.cs.orst.edu

In article <40117@cup.portal.com> Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com writes:
>John Thaanun related problems with his ST after trying to run "Goldrunner"..
> 
>First of all, if it's the same game, "Goldrunner" was a commercial product
>from MicroDeal in England, distributed in the USA by MichTron.. not PD..
> 
>>9.  Since the cover is currently off my computer (I have been fiddling with
>                                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>    ram upgrades) I decide to unplug it, and ground every pin on each of the
>     ^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>    ram chips.
> 
>I highly suspect this is the cause of the problem, not trying to run a
>game...  except for highly isolated cases, software CANNOT damage hardware.
> 
>The symptoms described sound very much like the effects of fiddling with
>RAM upgrades...
> 
>BobR

I have heard from many people that Goldrunner is not PD.  I plan on calling
Joppa (where I got my drive) and asking them why they bundled commercial  
stuff on my syquest cart.

I know that software -usually- cannot damage hardware, but this is not written
in stone.  Early Commodore machines had weaknesses this way.  The Apple ][
may have never surpassed the Commodore PET as an educational machine in
elementary schools were it not for a rom-frying POKE statement in CBM basic.
It was all too easy for enterprising students to bake their machine with
just a few keystrokes.  I don't remember how it worked, only that it did.

I don't think my machine has been damaged, but only that it fails to forget
things when I turn it off.  Right now it is at its normal, unexpanded 512K.
All is normal except for one broken pin on the mmu.  It worked 100% fine
for about a week, even without the pin.  ( I assume that pin is for addressing
higher memory, which I don't have right now.)

Makes me kinda wish my ST would zero all memory locations at bootup like
the good ol' 8bits do :-)

John Thaanum        thaanuj@prism.cs.orst.edu