Path: utzoo!attcan!lsuc!maccs!cs3b3aj
From: cs3b3aj@maccs.McMaster.CA (Stephen M. Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: MS-Fortran versus Sidekick Plus
Summary: Let's peek inside Microsoft's head
Keywords: puzzlement
Message-ID: <2286@maccs.McMaster.CA>
Date: 30 Mar 89 22:08:42 GMT
References: <98@maytag.waterloo.edu> <45900219@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Reply-To: cs3b3aj@maccs.UUCP (Stephen M. Dunn)
Distribution: na
Organization: McMaster U., Hamilton, Ont., Can.
Lines: 23

In article <45900219@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>Yes. Service 34 is marked "reserved" in my DOS reference. This means
>"RESERVED TO MICROSOFT". Your Fortran compiler was written, along with
>its run-time code, by Microsoft. They used a reserved function -
>RESERVED TO THEM. If another Fortran vendor used that method, it would
>not be legal.

   Well, it seems to me that if Microsoft reserves a function and then
uses it in their own software (which may be floating around for quite
some time), they must plan to make that function available in new
versions of DOS for quite some time to come.  Therefore, why don't
they say what it does in their manuals, and include a warning that
it may be removed in the future?  That way, the rest of us could use
what must obviously be a useful service if we wanted to.

   Am I naive, or am I making a valid point here?

Regards,
-- 
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! Stephen M. Dunn, cs3b3aj@maccs.McMaster.CA ! DISCLAIMER:           !
! I always wanted to be a lumberjack! - M.P. ! I'm only an undergrad !
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