🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <731@jolnet.ORPK.IL.US>, rich@jolnet.ORPK.IL.US (Rich Andrews) writes:
> In article <KW.D6XG.260888@SALF.D> KEITH@SYSD.SALFORD.AC.UK (Keith Wolstenholme) writes:
> >
> >Atari already went down this route once, when the XLs were introduced
> >they weren't 100% compatible with the older machines but they did have
> >RAM located "underneath" the OS ROMS. Various translator disks were
> >produced that turned off the OS in ROM and loaded the older OS into
> >RAM.

...

> The XL operating systems WERE 100% (or nearly so) compatable with the old OS in the Atari
> 800/400's.  It was the illegal system calls written in by the "Software Engineers" at various
> companies that caused all the grief.

> rich andrews

I had a bit of experience in that area (the Apex HP Calculator program
actual did a JSR into the middle of an instruction in the floating point
ROM -- and of course if you change the code to speed it up, that is one
of those things most programmers will overlook!).

But to get back on track, all the discussion so far on the problems Atari
is trying to face with this upgrade of TOS ROMs are in fact illegal system
calls (or accesses generally) and really should not have ever been released
by whomever wrote the code... They were though, so now we have to decide what
to do next --- live with a chunk of trash in the ROMs or throw it out (and with
it yesterday's funnies, since someone wrapped the catbox contents in them before
I read them !!!

I can live with either decision, but the stink lasts a lot longer than the
pain of lost gratification this month.

Charles Marslett
chasm@killer.dallas.tx.us