Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!dali.cs.montana.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!samsung!crackers!cpoint!frog!rmkhome!rmk
From: rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: Anyone using prodigy with an AMIGA?
Message-ID: <9105072239.09@rmkhome.UUCP>
Date: 8 May 91 07:39:00 GMT
References: <22263@shlump.nac.dec.com> <6283@iron13.UUCP> <1579@tronsbox.xei.com> <+W6B79@irie.ais.org> <805@tnc.UUCP>
Reply-To: rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly)
Organization: The Man With Ten Cats
Lines: 25

In article <805@tnc.UUCP> m0154@tnc.UUCP (GUY GARNETT) writes:
>
>Assuming no massive conspiracy, what's probably going on is that
>stuff.dat contains a memory image of the last Prodigy session (so that
>it can start-up and put you back where you want to be).  MessyDOS has
>no real memory control system, so whatever was in RAM before you start
>Prodigy will still be there unless it is specifically overwritten.  If
>the Prodigy software later saves the entire memory image, then areas
>that were never overwritten (like never-used data transfer buffers)
>will contain fragments of whatever was there before.  Just about all
>software for the PC is suceptable to this: I first noticed it when
>programming in Turbo Pascal: my executable file seemed to contain
>fragments of the program source code (which was in the Turbo Editor
>just before Turbo compiled the program in memory, and saved it off to
>disk).

What actually happens, is that the first time Progidy is run, it sets up
the STAGE.DAT file.  When a file is deleted under MSDOS, the data is still
hanging around on the disk, and some of it ends up in STAGE.DAT.  There are
some PD programs like zerofile.exe, that fill a file with zeros before you
delete them.

But I wouldn't take Prodigy for free.

Rick Kelly	rmk@rmkhome.UUCP	frog!rmkhome!rmk	rmk@frog.UUCP