Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mailrus!bcm!uhnix2!uace0
From: uace0@uhnix2.uh.edu (Michael B. Vederman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: DCFORMAT v.2.21
Message-ID: <577@uhnix2.uh.edu>
Date: 1 May 88 15:05:24 GMT
References: <8804220958.AA18680@lasso.laas.fr>
Reply-To: uace0@uhnix2.UUCP (Michael B. Vederman)
Organization: University of Houston
Lines: 60

In article <8804220958.AA18680@lasso.laas.fr> ralph@lasso.UUCP (Ralph P. Sobek) writes:
>Michael B. Vederman asks me the following:
>
>|  Why are you running GDOS all the time?
>|  
>|  I would only suggest running GDOS with programs that need it.  I have the new
>|  ROMS, which really speed up system response, and when I run GDOS the sytem is
>|  really unusable -- ie., SLOOOOOWWWWW!!!
>  
>I thought that GDOS had to be in the \AUTO\ folder, and therefore loaded each
>and every time!  Mine doesn't like to be loaded manually.  Am I missing
>something?
>
>|  The problem has to do with VDI handles and the like.  I will look into it.
>  
>Thanks, though!
>
>Ralph P. Sobek		       | UUCP:  uunet!mcvax!inria!lasso!ralph,    or
>			       |        ralph@lasso.uucp
>LAAS-CNRS		       | Internet:  ralph@lasso.laas.fr,    or
>7, avenue du Colonel-Roche     |            ralph%lasso.laas.fr@uunet.UU.NET
>F-31077 Toulouse Cedex, FRANCE | ARPA:   sobek@eclair.Berkeley.EDU (forwarded\
>+(33) 61-33-62-66	       | BITNET/EARN:  SOBEK@FRMOP11        \ to UUCP )
>=  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =
>P.S.  Does anybody know of a trivial program that could be put in a batch file
>and cause the ST to reset (or reboot)?
>P.P.S.  Reply directly to me since I do not get USENET news.
>=  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =

We have found our bug, and will have it fixed in our next releases of
DC Formatter, version 3.0.

The problem (altho trivial now) took me some time to discover.  We had our
handles correct, we simply initialized the intin array incorrectly (by one
element) and this caused stupendous crashes using GDOS.

I still can't see why anyone would bootup GDOS, unless they really needed it.
That program could use much improvement in the way it handles coordinate
conversions.  No offense to Atari, but I bet it is written in 'C.'

Don't get me wrong, I love 'C' but for time critical code (and GDOS is since
it has to steal the trap #2 vector and do horrendous conversions) I would
surmise that pure hand massaged assembly would vastly improve it's speed.

If Atari would like, Double Click Software will do a PURE assembly conversion.
All we need is the source code.  :-)

BTW - Maybe someone at Atari can tell me why when I boot up GDOS v1.1 with new
ROMs (maybe with old ROMs too) I get a trap #1 (divide by zero error) so many
times, before it does a good boot up?  This seems to happen more on resets
than on cold-starts.

- Mike


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