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From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: IBM does an impersonation of itself
Message-ID: <576@looking.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 11-Jun-86 11:56:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: looking.576
Posted: Wed Jun 11 11:56:38 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Jun-86 23:53:36 EDT
References: <284@mc0.UUCP>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Distribution: na
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd. Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 38
Summary: 

In article <284@mc0.UUCP> garyf@mc0.UUCP (gary friedman) writes:
>
>[BEGINNING OF ARTICLE]
>
>     IBM says any problems  are the fault of  software developers
>that  violate  IBM's  technical  guidelines.   "There's  no story
>here,"  a company spokeswoman says.   But software makers say IBM
>is  unrealistic.   A  cardinal  IBM rule  dictates  that software
>should "talk" only to the PC's internal coding, known as the BIOS
>(basic input-output system);  then the BIOS acts  as a translator
>and tells the machine's chips  what  to  do.   But  many programs
>violate this rule,  bypassing the translator and talking directly
>to the chips to let screen images show up more quickly and to add
>special commands.
>     Software makers gamble that the rules they break  won't work
>against them  when  IBM  later  changes  hardware  features.  "In
>certain  products  we  have  to  depart  from  them  to  get  the
>performance we need," says Roy Folk,
>     
....
>     [END OF ARTICLE]
>     
>     Why, why, why, why, why does ANYONE patronize IBM??????
>     

I guess they do it because IBM has the guts to improve a product along
lines that their technical specs said was perfectly valid, even though
they know it breaks badly-behaved, popular programs.

How can you have sympathy for Ashton-Tate or Borland?  IBM manuals said,
"here is how to access the keyboard.  Do it this way, or your program may
not work on future products."  Programmers ignored this rule in full knowledge.
Now it comes to pass, and people bitch?

I have a product which writes directly to the screen memory of the PC.
Should IBM change their screen configuration, I don't expect any sympathy.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473