Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!claris!wombat
From: wombat@claris.com (Scott Lindsey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: The Nifty //GS and Apple Support
Message-ID: <9111@claris.com>
Date: 20 Mar 89 07:15:17 GMT
References: <9109@claris.com>
Organization: Claris Corporation, Mountain View CA
Lines: 35

From article <9109@claris.com>, by krazy@claris.com (Jeff Erickson):
> It's just as well, though.  Scott's found (and reported!) lots of MPW IIgs C
> bugs, mostly in the libraries.  Unless you want your program to fit in a
> single bank (and a few other nasty limitations), it just don't work.

Now that's not quite true.  You CAN have a program larger than a bank
(remember my rogue-clone port?  [still being debugged]).  What you're
basically limited to is 1 bank (64K) of data.  The equivalent of _main()
sets the data bank to the bank containing your data (singular) segment.
If you don't like this, or if you don't use the start.obj interface, well,
then... you look at it sideways, hold your breath and say the magic word.

Now, you say, who on earth would want more than 64K of data?  How 'bout a
program that needs 1.25Mb to run?

> Unless you're Scott.  Then you rewrite the library routines.  :-)
And break them, and re-write them.


Most of the "bugs" that I've found in the libraries are really dependancies
on the short-address memory model used for the IIgs (MPW & APW) C compiler.
OK, I admit that a 3 16-bit register CPU isn't really the best candidate
for C, but other PC C (not PCC) compilers have made allowances.  The IIgs
C compilers don't even have a -E option (a standard option for running the
preprocessor and nothing else).

Oh well, bitch bitch bitch.  Hmmm.  I wonder how big the GNU kernel will be
eventually... Yes, the IIgs GNU subset!  What a thought.  :-)


-- 
Scott Lindsey     |"Cold and misty morning. I heard a warning borne in the air
Claris Corp.      |    About an age of power when no one had an hour to spare"
ames!claris!wombat| DISCLAIMER: These are not the opinions of Claris, Apple,
wombat@claris.com |    StyleWare, the author, or anyone else living or dead.