Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!UIAMVS.BITNET!AWCTTYPA
From: AWCTTYPA@UIAMVS.BITNET ("David A. Lyons")
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: GS/OS and programming standards
Message-ID: <8903041451.aa16786@SMOKE.BRL.MIL>
Date: 4 Mar 89 23:46:08 GMT
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Organization: The Internet
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X-Unparsable-Date: Saturday 04 Mar 89 1:51 PM CT

>Date:      Sat, 4 Mar 89 01:21:31 CST
>From:      "Jeremy G. Mereness" <jm7e+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU>
>Subject:   Programming Standards(wasRe: GS/OS Compatability issues)

>[...] I still don't consider GS/OS a "real" operating system for the
>GS because of many of these issues: it is too volatile, standards are
>too new and are all too often ignored, and for some reason (and I can
>only assume that this is because the OS doesn't cover its tracks) a
>great deal of software crashes under it.

I disagree strongly.

(1) It is not "too volatile": programs that don't do anything stupid
(trash memory at random, use resource forks for their own purposs,
assume device names are ".d1", ".d2", etc) will continue to work
under future system disk releases.

(2) How can you blame ignorance of standards on the OS?  That's the
fault of application programmers when it occurs.

>[...] as well as the mess of device drivers (I am still having hell
>with my Unidisk). Most of the GS users here at Carnegie-Mellon avoid
>GS/OS entirely preferring Prodos16 when it's necessary.

Did you install the UniDisk 3.5 driver onto your boot disk using the
Installer?  I (unfortunately) sometimes have to use a GS with only a
Profile and a UniDisk 3.5.  I have not had any problems (other than
being annoyed at the drive's speed).

>My biggest complaint is that GS/OS does not check the disk drives,
>eject them when necessary, and often fails to realize that it needs
>the system disk and instead poles my Unidisk blindly until I reboot
>the machine. And there has to be a better way for Finder to handle
>its drives than polling them all the time.

Uhhh...HOW is GS/OS supposed to know when to eject a disk?  The
application has to figure that out (it's trivial for an application
to ask GS/OS to eject a disk; not so under ProDOS 16).

Please explain the "blindly polling the UniDisk" situation better.
GS/OS on System Disk 4.0 never needs the system disk itself; what
application are you using when this happens?

There is currently no better way for the Finder to always notice
when you insert a disk than to poll the drives.  (The Finder has
always polled; this is not new.)  It would be nice if the UniDisk
didn't make so much noise when it was polled, though.

>I feel that Apple needs to set down some _rules_; just a few
>protocols even if they are as simple as a text-based "preferences"
>file on the startup disk like used on our Unix workstations.

We have battery RAM that can be set in the Control Panel.  Why
complicate things?  (What additional settings do you want, anyway?)

>and it is viscousy slow.

Umm, yeah.  GS/OS is slow, so use ProDOS 16 instead (which is
considerably slower).

By the way, if you want speed, WHY are you using a UniDisk 3.5?  A
Mac would be slow, too, if you were using it with a UniDisk 3.5 (you
can't, though).

>jeremy mereness
>jm7e+@andrew.cmu.edu

 --David A. Lyons              bitnet: awcttypa@uiamvs
   DAL Systems                 CompuServe:  72177,3233
   P.O. Box 287                GEnie mail:    D.LYONS2
   North Liberty, IA 52317     AppleLinkPE: Dave Lyons