Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watcgl!electro!ignac
From: ignac@electro.UUCP (Ignac Kolenko)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: TOS 1.6...
Message-ID: <1252@electro.UUCP>
Date: 10 Jan 90 21:40:11 GMT
References: <9001100808.AA18195@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Reply-To: ignac@electro.UUCP (Ignac Kolenko)
Organization: Electrohome Ltd., Kitchener, ON
Lines: 29

In article <9001100808.AA18195@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> VBRANDT@DBNUAMA1.BITNET writes:
>   Sorry, but this technically impossible.  The 1.6 version is bigger than the
>available ROM space in a regular ST/Mega, and is installed at a different
>location in the CPU address space.
>
>   Also, I doubt that 1.6 checks for CPUs other than a 68000.  TOS 3.0, on the
>other hand, does just what you want.  3.0 is the TOS that comes with the TT.
>It won't work in STs for the same reasons.


actually, darek mihocka and myself have an STE and we've disassembled the
exception handlers in TOS 1.6, and sure enough, it checks some
system variable which tells the software what type of stack frame it can
expect. therefore, if its a 68000 processor, it uses an offset begeinning
at 6 from the current stack pointer to get params, and if its an 010 or
higher, it uses an offset of 8. it does this in getting params, and also
for reconstructing stack frames, etc. so, in actuality, tos 1.6 does indeed
support cpus other than the 68000. 

also, i remember vaguely reading some review in ST world on the STE when
it was unveiled at the dusseldorf show, and they were saying it was running
tos 1.6 at the time. but i could be wrong ...


-- 
=====Ignac A. Kolenko (The Ig)           watmath!watcgl!electro!ignac=====
     co-author of QuickST, and the entire line of Quick Shareware!!!!
       "I don't care if I don't win, 'cause I don't care if I fail"
             from 'Youth Of Today' by SUBURBAN DISTORTION