Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!portal!atari!kbad
From: kbad@atari.UUCP (Ken Badertscher)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Tick-tick-tick-CRASH! is not dead in TOS 1.4
Message-ID: <2015@atari.UUCP>
Date: 1 Feb 90 17:16:55 GMT
References: <22199@mimsy.umd.edu> <2087@syma.sussex.ac.uk>
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 36

grahamt@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Graham Thomas) writes:

| GST say it's something inside TOS (or GEMDOS or whatever layer
| it might be), so I was rather hoping the problem might go away with TOS
| 1.4. 

Now why doesn't that surprise me?  Not to bash GST, but I have found
that a lot of problems similar to this are a result of bad programming
practices.  Not intentional, but just because the developer wasn't
aware of some restriction or another.  It's all too easy to blame TOS.

I would like to know exactly how the GST products get their keyboard
input, in gory detail.  *IF* I knew that, then I might be able to
figure out what causes the problem.  I strongly suspect that the
problem is caused by  mixing input modes between AES/VDI/GEMDOS/BIOS. 
That has been known to produce results like this.  If it is _not_ that,
then there is a good chance that it _is_ a bug in TOS, and I want to
fix it!!!

| People can go for months without it striking, and then have it
| happen twice in a day.  (Sunspots??? :-) )

Yep, sounds a lot like the ol' cosmic rays.  It is really unfortunate that
this particular bug is not easily reproducible.  Of course, if it were,
it would probably have been fixed long ago... :-/

| I'm waiting for the bug to strike while I'm running Wordplus from within
| NeoDesk, so I can try sending a few wind_update() calls.  Would this do
| any good?

While you're at it, don't forget to sprinkle the chicken's blood on the
keyboard and dance about, chanting at the monitor.
-- 
   |||   Ken Badertscher  (ames!atari!kbad)
   |||   Atari R&D System Software Engine
  / | \  #include <disclaimer>