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From: apratt@atari.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: RE: Malloc() Flame
Message-ID: <543@atari.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Jan-87 13:25:10 EST
Article-I.D.: atari.543
Posted: Tue Jan 27 13:25:10 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Jan-87 04:25:26 EST
References: <8701231451.AA10776@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 34

> Calm down, Allan. I am not planning on running out and distributing programs
> which depend upon internal addresses, and then flame you when my programs
> break! Rather, I intend to examine this problem very thoroughly. If I told
> you, "well, I think that sort of, you know, I lose some memory sometimes
> after running one of the myriad versions of micro-emacs and maybe at other
> times with some combinations of a bunch of programs," then you would ignore
> me. You would ignore me for good reason, because I haven't provided enough
> information to find the bug.
> 
> My intent is to explore the problem, and see if I can find a good example.
> If I can, you'll be the first to know. If I can come up with a fix, and you
> guys can't/won't fix it, then I _might_ consider distributing a fix with
> breakable code. But it _would_ be documented as such.

When seeking a solution to a problem in an open forum, it is often
better to attack it directly rather than ask an obscure and infammatory
question: asking, "Does Atari know the specifics of the Malloc() problems,
and can/will they be fixed?" would have given me more information about
what problem you were trying to solve.

Had you asked this, I would have told you that we DO know what the problem
is, and nothing short of a complete rewrite will fix it, because the memory
allocation runs through the OS like a single thread through a whole sweater:
you start pulling and the whole thing disintegrates.  My advice to you is
to forget trying to disassemble ROM or whatever you hoped to do to fix
the problem.  It permeates the whole OS, and no patch will do.  I'd have
told you that, and more civilly, had you asked outright.

Please see the next posting from me for more on this and other subjects.

/----------------------------------------------\
| Opinions expressed above do not necessarily  |  -- Allan Pratt, Atari Corp.
| reflect those of Atari Corp. or anyone else. |     ...lll-lcc!atari!apratt
\----------------------------------------------/