2 Oct
2001
2 Oct
'01
7:23 p.m.
> Since "they never did provide BASIC"
then there was *always* "no ROM
> BASIC." That's like stopping the machine with a message stating "no
> printer." Why not display something understandable to a common user,
such
as "no
bootable device?"
Because INT 18h doesn't check for bootable devices. It is the entry to
ROM BASIC. It may well be that the most common time that it is called is
from the bootstrap after both floppy and hard disk boots have failed, but that doesn't mean it's the only time it can be
called.
Tony, are you simply being obstinate here, or didn't you see the above
reference to "common user?" Do you think "common users" -- not to be
disrespectful to plain old computer users -- read BIOS listings???
What I mean to say is: Suzy Six-pack, who ekes out a living typing up MS
Word documents, doesn't know shit about the internals of the machine she
uses.
Actually, one thing that really annoys me are error
messages that don't
describe the real problem, but only the most likely cause. I need to know
waht's really going on so that I can fix it. Odd,
that....
Yes, and even more odd is that you fail to see that "no bootable device" at
power-up actually does describe the problem, whereas "no ROM BASIC" does
not, since the system in question would never call INT 18h if a bootable
device were available (unless some insane programmer called it, and I
seriously doubt that you can show me a commercially available program which
does this).
Glen
0/0
3 Oct
3 Oct
2:40 a.m.
Glen Goodwin skrev:
Tony, are you simply being obstinate here, or
didn't you see the above
reference to "common user?" Do you think "common users" -- not to be
disrespectful to plain old computer users -- read BIOS listings???
What I mean to say is: Suzy Six-pack, who ekes out a
living typing up MS
Word documents, doesn't know shit about the internals of the machine she
uses.
But Glen, that's why there are Macs.
The very nature of the PC is that of strange "features" for backwards
compatibility. If you do get a PC, those features are a selling point.
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
6:37 p.m.
What I mean to
say is: Suzy Six-pack, who ekes out a living typing up MS
Word documents, doesn't know shit about the internals of the machine she
uses.
But Glen, that's why there are Macs. 
4 Oct
4 Oct
5:17 a.m.
What I mean to say is: Suzy Six-pack, who ekes out a
living typing up MS
Word documents, doesn't know shit about the internals of the machine she
uses.
But Glen, that's why there are Macs. 
1:41 p.m.
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5:20 a.m.
Cameron Kaiser skrev:
> >What I mean to say is: Suzy Six-pack, who
ekes out a living typing up MS
> >Word documents, doesn't know shit about the internals of the machine she
> >uses.
>
> But Glen, that's why there are Macs.
I very much hope you aren't implying that Mac users
don't know what's going
on with their machines.
They don't, and they're not supposed to.
OTOH, they often have a much better grasp of what goes on with the OS than
your average Windows user.
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
Hackers do it with fewer instructions.
3:50 p.m.
> > But Glen, that's why there are Macs.
>I very much hope you aren't implying that Mac
users don't know what's going
>on with their machines.
They don't, and they're not supposed to.
I find this remark ill-informed at best. I definitely know what's going
on inside my 7300, my Mac Plus, my Apple Network Server and my farm of IIcis,
and there are also plenty of DIY-Mac upgraders on the LowEndMac lists. Macs
aren't 'mysterious beige boxes' even if they do have fewer upgrade options
in some respects.
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- When in doubt, take a pawn. -- Mission: Impossible ("Crack-Up") ------------
6:54 p.m.
Cameron Kaiser skrev:
> > > But Glen, that's why there are Macs.
> >I very much hope you aren't implying that
Mac users don't know what's
> >going on with their machines.
> They don't, and they're not supposed to.
I find this remark ill-informed at best. I definitely
know what's going
on inside my 7300, my Mac Plus, my Apple Network Server and my farm of IIcis,
and there are also plenty of DIY-Mac upgraders on the LowEndMac lists. Macs
aren't 'mysterious beige boxes' even if they do have fewer upgrade options in
some respects.
Of course you do, I've never doubted that. But the average Mac user is not at
all interested in the inner workings of their computer.
Besides, I never said anything about the knowledge of Mac users, I was
referring to the intended audience for Macs, namely "the rest of us" (or the
rest of the world, seen from this list's perspective).
Sorry if I'm a bit incoherent, I'm 1 m from collapsing into bed.
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
MUSIK G?R MAN AV PLAST OCH KISEL!
TR?D ANV?NDER MAN TILL M?BLER!
4:01 p.m.
What I mean to say is: Suzy Six-pack, who ekes out a
living typing up MS
Word documents, doesn't know shit about the internals of the machine she
uses.
But Glen, that's why there are Macs.
3 Oct
3 Oct
10:57 a.m.
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3:04 p.m.
It was thus said that the Great Tony Duell once stated:
No, perhaps not (although it would probably be a good thing if they did
:-)). On the other hand, that is _no excuse_ for displaying misleading or
incorrect error messages.
INT 18h has _nothing_ to do with bootable devices. It's the entry for ROM
BASIC. To make it display a message saying 'No bootable devices found' is
plain misleading.
While the PC XT BIOS Listing (and the PC Jr BIOS Listing) both refer to
INT 18h as the ROM BASIC entry, under the Data General/1 Laptop I have that
entry (I don't have the BIOS listing, but I do have the BIOS programming
guide and hardware reference manual) as being reserved (and in fact, if it's
called, you'll be dumped into the mini office suite-esque program that
allows terminal IO and word pressing at a minimum).
At the time the PC was first introduced, the clone manufactorers pretty
much had to follow *what* the PC BIOS did, but in their case, they *didn't*
have a BASIC to install in the BIOS. At the time, it probably made sense to
say ``no ROM BASIC'' but really, nowadays, do even IBM PCs come with BASIC
ROM? I think that in the abscence of ROM BASIC or some other internal program
that loads, saying ``no bootable device'' is acceptable.
If a user later adds a ROM with BASIC, it can follow the established
guidelines to intercepting INT 18h with its own code.
And writing the PDP-10 instruction set in assembly language on a Pentium
does *not* make it microcode! It's an emulator.
Tony, if your PC doesn't *have* BASIC at the end of INT 18h, calling it
the ROM BASIC loader doesn't make sense; at best it's a reserved call that
shouldn't be used.
Tell me of a PCompatible (not made by IBM) that has BASIC hanging off INT
18h, then maybe I'll concede the point 8-)
Also, while INT 19h is the bootstrap loader, you *cannot* simply reload
the operating system by calling INT 19h. In fact, if any code does (other
than the BIOS after the POST but before INT 18h) it is in fact, defective.
-spc (Looked at it another way, INT 18h is the resident program loader)
Because
INT 18h doesn't check for bootable devices. It is the entry to
ROM BASIC. It may well be that the most common time that it is called is
from the bootstrap after both floppy and hard disk boots have failed, but
that doesn't mean it's the only time it can be called.
Tony, are you simply being obstinate here, or didn't you see the above
reference to "common user?" Do you think "common users" -- not to
be
disrespectful to plain old computer users -- read BIOS listings??? Yes, and even
more odd is that you fail to see that "no bootable device" at
power-up actually does describe the problem, whereas "no ROM BASIC" does
The only way you'll convince me that 'no bootable device' is the right
error message is that if it is displayed by the bootstrap when both
floppy and hard boots have failed _and that the bootstrap does not call
INT 18h_. Because as I keep on saying, INT 18h is nothing to do with the
bootstrap. not, since the
system in question would never call INT 18h if a bootable
device were available (unless some insane programmer called it, and I
seriously doubt that you can show me a commercially available program which
does this).
And supposing it is called for some reason (either a bug in the code,
attempting to execute unitialised/data memory, or a deliberate attempt to
call ROM BASIC). Is then 'no bootable devices' a reasonable error to
give? When the machine wasn't attempting to boot anything. 
6:09 p.m.
--- Absurdly Obtuse <vance(a)ikickass.org> wrote:
On Wed, 3 Oct 2001, Sean 'Captain Napalm'
Conner
wrote:
Hmmm...are there EPROM's in it, or ROMs? I built a PC
compatible with a bare board and stuffed the chips and
soldered it when I was broke in college. The BIOS it
came with wasn't very PC compatible. So (and I'm not
making any excuses for this..) I wrote a program in
disk based GW-BASIC (I actually BOUGHT it) that looked
like it did something when in reality it was writing
2048K ROM images of the BIOS and BASIC ROMS of a real
IBM PC to floppy. I took it to an IBM store (IBM had
"stores" then) and told the salesman that I wanted to
know if my program would really run on an IBM PC/XT. I
ran it, it "worked", I said, "thank you very much",
went to work, blew the EPROMS, stuffed 'em in my
motherboard, and then, my PC, although it had a wooden
case and a power supply shielded with Erector Set
parts, was really, really, definitely IBM PC
compatible!!
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
NEW from Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month.
http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1
Tell me of a PCompatible (not made by IBM) that
has BASIC hanging off INT
18h, then maybe I'll concede the point 8-)
I don't mean to take sides on this argument, but my
Everex 286 XT has
BASIC on INT18h. 
7:26 p.m.
I don't know if they are EPROMs, but I don't think so. It came stock with
BASIC on ROM.
Peace... Sridhar
On Wed, 3 Oct 2001, Loboyko Steve wrote:
--- Absurdly Obtuse <vance(a)ikickass.org> wrote:
On Wed, 3 Oct 2001, Sean 'Captain Napalm'
Conner
wrote:
Hmmm...are there EPROM's in it, or ROMs? I built a PC
compatible with a bare board and stuffed the chips and
soldered it when I was broke in college. The BIOS it
came with wasn't very PC compatible. So (and I'm not
making any excuses for this..) I wrote a program in
disk based GW-BASIC (I actually BOUGHT it) that looked
like it did something when in reality it was writing
2048K ROM images of the BIOS and BASIC ROMS of a real
IBM PC to floppy. I took it to an IBM store (IBM had
"stores" then) and told the salesman that I wanted to
know if my program would really run on an IBM PC/XT. I
ran it, it "worked", I said, "thank you very much",
went to work, blew the EPROMS, stuffed 'em in my
motherboard, and then, my PC, although it had a wooden
case and a power supply shielded with Erector Set
parts, was really, really, definitely IBM PC
compatible!!
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
NEW from Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month.
http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1
Tell me of a PCompatible (not made by IBM) that
has BASIC hanging off INT
18h, then maybe I'll concede the point 8-)
I don't mean to take sides on this argument, but my
Everex 286 XT has
BASIC on INT18h.
4 Oct
4 Oct
5:07 a.m.
Loboyko Steve skrev:
soldered it when I was broke in college. The BIOS it
came with wasn't very PC compatible. So (and I'm not
making any excuses for this..) I wrote a program in
disk based GW-BASIC (I actually BOUGHT it) that looked
like it did something when in reality it was writing
2048K ROM images of the BIOS and BASIC ROMS of a real
IBM PC to floppy. I took it to an IBM store (IBM had
"stores" then) and told the salesman that I wanted to
know if my program would really run on an IBM PC/XT. I
ran it, it "worked", I said, "thank you very much",
went to work, blew the EPROMS, stuffed 'em in my
LOL! That's so absolutely twisted! And a great story!
But how did you get 2048K onto a floppy? And are IBM BIOSes really that big?
Not even Amiga ROMs are that big, and the Atari fits an entire WIMP OS into a
128 K ROM.
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
Amiga: (noun) The most technologically advanced computer that hardly anyone
cares about.
Use in sentence: "I wanted to buy an Amiga for its low price and great color
graphics, but everyone else seems to be using IBMs or Macintoshes. So, to
remain compatible with the rest of the world, I spent three times as much on a
Macintosh and got only half the graphics capability of an Amiga."
5 Oct
5 Oct
2:56 p.m.
>> FLAMEBAIT WARNING<<< >>>
FLAMEBAIT WARNING<<<
I take it you're referring to TOS and GEM. I won't bite, there've been
enough
Amiga<->ST wars. And both platforms are dead ! But I can't resist one jab.
I guess all those musicians who used it and loved STs were wrong.
And I have an A1000, 2000, and 3000 but still have more fun on my ATARI !!
I guess WIMPS can have fun. And to think you hardly got a rise out of the
Apple people except for Cameron, but he's really a Commie man. Oh well
you realize you're an anachronism don't you. Have you reached 30 yet ?
BTW my grandparents name was Larsen. Are you sure your parentage
wasn't swedish ?(So you want to start a flame-war, d'ya ? try that one)
But we do have Sam Tramiel in common. Our glorius Hasbro leader.
ciao (love those latins) Lorens
Hmmm, Old habits are long-lasting. Could'na he'p m'sef.
.
But how did you get 2048K onto a floppy? And are IBM
BIOSes really that
big? Not even Amiga ROMs are that big, and the Atari fits an entire
WIMP OS into a 128 K ROM.
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
Amiga: (noun) The most technologically advanced computer that hardly anyone
cares about. Use in sentence: "I wanted to buy an Amiga for its low price and
great color graphics, but everyone else seems to be using IBMs or Macintoshes.
So, to remain compatible with the rest of the world, I spent three times as much
on a Macintosh and got only half the graphics capability of an Amiga."
Reply to:
lgwalker(a)mts.net
6 Oct
6 Oct
3:14 p.m.
Lawrence Walker skrev:
>>> FLAMEBAIT WARNING<<<
>>> FLAMEBAIT WARNING<<<
[snip]
Lawrence, WIMP is an acronym for Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers. It's not
an insult.
I think we thus can establish that your attack was totally uncessary.
(I'm surprised that I didn't flame him. Must be because I've just eaten)
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
G? med i SUGA, Swedish Usergroup of Amiga!
WWW: http://swedish.usergroup.amiga.tm/
BBS: 08-6582572, telnet://sua.ath.cx:42512
7 Oct
7 Oct
2:21 p.m.
My apologies. I must stop reading the Amiga newsgroups
Lawrence
Lawrence Walker skrev:
Reply to:
lgwalker(a)mts.net
>>> FLAMEBAIT WARNING<<<
>>> FLAMEBAIT WARNING<<<
[snip]
Lawrence, WIMP is an acronym for Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers. It's not an
insult. I think we thus can establish that your attack was totally uncessary.
(I'm surprised that I didn't flame him. Must be because I've just eaten)
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
G? med i SUGA, Swedish Usergroup of Amiga!
WWW: http://swedish.usergroup.amiga.tm/
BBS: 08-6582572, telnet://sua.ath.cx:42512
3 Oct
3 Oct
8:15 p.m.
Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote:
At the time the PC was first introduced, the clone
manufactorers pretty
much had to follow *what* the PC BIOS did, but in their case, they *didn't*
have a BASIC to install in the BIOS. At the time, it probably made sense to
say ``no ROM BASIC'' but really, nowadays, do even IBM PCs come with BASIC
ROM? I think that in the abscence of ROM BASIC or some other internal program
that loads, saying ``no bootable device'' is acceptable.
No that particular message is not accpectable. It would lead any
rational person to check that all disk devices are connected and
fucntional. A more correct message would be "No bootable media found"
Our BIOS can display a "Trying device xxx" message making the final
message even more useful since it is preceded by a list of devices which
were tried.
If a user later adds a ROM with BASIC, it can follow
the established
guidelines to intercepting INT 18h with its own code.
Yes and no. In today's BIOS, INT 18 has bee "hijacked" or respecified to
be an integrated part of the boot sequence. It is actually called from
some bootstrap sectors to signal the fact that the media has no bootable
system.
Installing an option ROM with BASIC which redirects int 18 will probably
cause all modern systems to fail any boot attempt and always enter
BASIC. Perhaps not such a bad thing ;-)
-- HBP
8303
days inactive
8308
days old
18 comments
11 participants
participants (11)
-
acme_ent＠bellsouth.net -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
geneb＠deltasoft.com -
hansp＠aconit.org -
jhellige＠earthlink.net -
lgwalker＠mts.net -
optimus＠canit.se -
sloboyko＠yahoo.com -
spc＠conman.org -
spectre＠stockholm.ptloma.edu -
vance＠ikickass.org