Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!ncar!tank!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!uxg.cso.uiuc.edu!uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!mcdonald
From: mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: MAJOR MAC IIx PROBLEMS!!!!! APP
Message-ID: <46100273@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 2 Feb 89 20:59:00 GMT
References: <35965@think.UUCP>
Lines: 27
Nf-ID: #R:think.UUCP:35965:uxe.cso.uiuc.edu:46100273:000:1302
Nf-From: uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!mcdonald    Feb  2 14:59:00 1989



>This is not in the least limited to a single program. He showed me four
>programs that did this in the few minutes I was there. He has now found
>several others, including an old Mac mainstay, MacWrite.


>Public domain software is a special problem.  Much of this is (or was,
>before the Mac II) written with little regard to compatibility, and
>tested only on whatever machine the author has on his desk.  


And for good reason. When I tried programming a MAC, it was devilishly
difficult to get any good, useable info. It all looked like it
was written for Pascal, and I was using Fortran. Besides, Apple
clearly stated "One Mac, the same, Now And Forever". They never
mentioned Multifinder or anything else. I wrote a perfectly 100%
legal Fortran program that won't run on a Mac II. This has NEVER
and I mean NEVER happened on any other computer in the 25 years I have
been programming! A 100% (and I DO mean 100%) legal Fortran program
should continue to run. Programs I wrote under VMS 1.00 run fine
under 5.0. Programs I wrote under 1.1 of OS360 ran until I
got sick of IBM ( :-( ). Programs under under MS-DOS 2.1 run fine under
4.01, as well as multitask under Windows 386 (they all run under regular
Windows, but only the 100% Fortran or ANSI C ones multitask.)

Why is the Mac different?