Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncc!alberta!ubc-cs!van-bc!lpami
From: lphillips@lpami.van-bc.UUCP (Larry Phillips)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Fix for empty drives which still clicck AFTER using Klickstart?
Message-ID: <1757@van-bc.UUCP>
Date: 14 May 88 20:24:24 GMT
Sender: lpami@van-bc.UUCP
Lines: 28


In <6943@swan.ulowell.edu>, page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) writes:
 >Aside to old-time KS hackers ... I purposely munged the checksum to
 >see what the A1000 would do with an invalid KS ... nothing!  As if it
 >didn't even check it.  So I munged more blocks (ASCII text, not code)
 >and it still booted fine.  Whazzup?

  Yes, I found that to be fascinating. I haven't tried it under 1.2 (I
can't even recall if it was under 1.1 or 1.0 I did try it), but when I
tried modifying a KS disk, I found that the machine would boot it OK, but
that a Vulcan Nerve Pinch prompted me for the KS again, rather than the WB.
It was as if the checksumming was only performed as the the result of a
three fingered salute, and not during the actual boot.

  My thought at the time was that perhaps it was that way so that the
engineers could easily patch the disk. (tsk tsk) to check quick fixes.
Maybe not... but it is rather interesting that it worked that way.

-larry

--
Janus? Well, look at it this way. If you squint a little, the J could be
       Amiga checkmark, and the rest of the word describes MsDos.
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|   //   Larry Phillips                                          |
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