🚀 go-pugleaf

> From: imagen!atari!apratt@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU  (Allan Pratt)
> 
> > Could someone send me info on the form used for calling pexec.  I need
> > the actual call, ie address, plus the expected arguments and return.
> > Thanx in Advance.  /bill
> 
> I don't get it.  "address"?  OS calls on the ST don't have addresses.
> Where's your documentation?  If you don't have any, why not?
> 
> Forgive my presumption, but it seems possible that you have an illegal
> copy of Atari's or somebody else's compiler without the documentation.
> There is a mistake in Atari's (and therefore some other people's)
> documentation of the Pexec call (using function code 4), but I'm not
> about to tell you what it is.  Please get legitimate.  It's not even
> that expensive for some of the compilers out there.

I can't believe this attitude!  Someone asks for some information
about how to use a system call on the ST.  Instead of either ignoring
the request or answering it, Allan Pratt says tough luck -- there's
a bug in our documentation but I'm not going to tell you (or
presumably anyone else out on the net) what it is because I don't
believe you've bought our compiler.

First of all, Allan's presumption is questionable.  The guy might be
trying to call GEMDOS from ST Basic or OSS Pascal, both of which
provide hooks into the OS but don't describe the calls in their
documentation.  Second, what good is it going to do the guy to "get
legitimate" if Atari's and other people's documentation is wrong
anyway?

I was not aware of the bug, nor have I had occasion to use Pexec
yet.  But I expect to soon, and I don't relish the thought of wasting
hours of my time finding a bug in the documentation that Atari already
knows about but won't tell me about.  I have both the developer's
kit and Mark Williams C.  The MWC documentation is pretty good about
correcting the bugs and filling in the omissions from Atari's
documentation.  I hope when I come to using Pexec that I will find
the error corrected there since it looks like I can't expect any
help from Atari on this one.

By the way, we'd all like to know where our documentation is.  We
were promised an official Atari ST internals book by Christmas time
last year, but like so many Atari promises, it never materialized,
nor did we hear any explanation for the delay, nor when it would
appear, nor even if it will still appear.  What's the story?

--Mike Fischer <fischer@yale.arpa>
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