Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!rutgers!att!chinet!saj
From: saj@chinet.chi.il.us (Stephen Jacobs)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: bios function 0x7f
Summary: Let's start toward fixing things!
Message-ID: <7251@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 22 Dec 88 22:10:04 GMT
References: <1263@atari.UUCP> <3774@druhi.ATT.COM> <1268@atari.UUCP>
Organization: Chinet - Chicago Public Access UNIX
Lines: 31

In article <1268@atari.UUCP>, apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt) writes:
             [as part of the illegal BIOS call discussion]
>   Want to know why I can't speed up Pexec? Because people rely
> on the entire heap, not just their declared BSS, being clear.  Want to
> know why I can't get rid of Malloc limitations? Because people use
> memory they don't own, and also rely on multiple Malloc's returning
> contiguous memory. 
> 
> Who promised that this "feature" would be left in? I have been here more
> than 2 years, and I never heard about it.  Worse, it was not commented
> in the code, which is the final arbiter of what has been promised. 
> Blame whoever made that promise, not me. 
> 
> ============================================
> Opinions expressed above do not necessarily	-- Allan Pratt, Atari Corp.
> reflect those of Atari Corp. or anyone else.	  ...ames!atari!apratt

    I'll admit to being of the camp that tends to say that if an OS repair
breaks the application, redo the application.  However, it would seem fair
to everyone to announce publicly and officially that un-documented features
X, Y and Z have been found to interfere with desirable changes to TOS, and
that any new OS releases after some given future date will defeat those
hacks.  Developers who are still in business will have decent notice to
remove dependence on such features (as a courtesy, Atari might privately
inform developers whose products are known to be at risk, without promising
that they'll do so).  Some orphan products will become useless to owners of
new or upgraded machines, but that will just make more business for the
remaining developers.  Anyone dependent on an orphan product will probably
have to forego the OS upgrade, but I personally think that anyone who stays
dependant on an orphan product needs his head examined (and I don't mean 
disk drive).