Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!cwjcc!hal!nic.MR.NET!umn-cs!hall!rosenkra
From: rosenkra@hall.cray.com (Bill Rosenkranz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: bios function 0x7f
Message-ID: <12210@hall.cray.com>
Date: 16 Dec 88 18:18:07 GMT
References: <12076@hall.cray.com> <3767@druhi.ATT.COM> <1263@atari.UUCP>
Reply-To: rosenkra@hall.UUCP (Bill Rosenkranz)
Organization: Cray Research, Inc., Mendota Heights, MN
Lines: 52

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In article <1263@atari.UUCP> apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt) writes:
=In article <3767@druhi.ATT.COM> dlm@druhi.ATT.COM (Dan Moore) writes:
=> in article <12076@hall.cray.com>, rosenkra@hall.cray.com (Bill Rosenkranz) says:
=> > after disassembling a code i found on some bbs which doubles the effective
=> > on-screen travel of the mouse form, i found it ixecutes bios function 0x7F
=> 
=> 	There isn't a bios function 0x7f.  But it is a useful bios call
=> if you intended to patch the bios handler on the ST.  When the ST bios
=> or xbios handler receives an illegal function number it returns an error
=> code and a pointer to the bios/xbios function pointer table.
=
=Great! This is exactly the kind of "It works, so use it" philosophy
=which makes it so hard to improve TOS in a backward-compatible way. 
=Please do not rely on crap like this in your programs.  If you do, don't
=expect them to work in the future.  Maybe I should make sure the hack
=described above stops working, but I'm not vindictive or petty, so I
=won't. 
=

lighten up, allan...

i was not advocating its use nor do i even plan to use it in my own stuff
i just wanted to know what was going on...

i do, however, appreciate your frustration. i  have just found out how
relying on undocumented  stuff is bad. on my 1040 i used to use GEMBOOT
(i know, a BIG no-no). well, now with my mega4, gemboot does not work.
only trouble is now i have to reboot the system every 1-2 hours of use
because the unpatched os is so bad and tos  1.4 is not ready for release
(i assumed all the memory mgmt/OSPool issues have _FINALLY_ been resolved?)
with atari selling mostly all 1 MB or larger machines these days,
i would expect THIS CRAP TO FINALLY GO AWAY. and what about stupid cp/m-era
(64k or less) restriction on command line length? how about a Pexec2() 
fcn so we can get into the 90's already?

allan, you've been one of the few good/positive things in the whole
scheme of ST things please DONT get vindictive. just keep striving (as you
have in the past) to improve things. i agree that undocumented thiings
used are at the risk of the user. the free market should weed them out
if end  users have a problem. the REAL problem is there are very few
end users who upgrade their ROMS (even if they could :^) that  using
weirdnes will more than likely never be a problem anyway. i know
you are in the middle of the "they used an undocemented/illegal practice
so screw them" and the "atari doesn't support its developers" dilema.

don't bother flaming me, i have calmed down. you should, too. it's not worth
an ulcer or heart attack...

-bill
...!rutgers!umn-cs!hall!boston!rosenkra
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