Re: Filename Wars

[nparker@cie-2.uoregon.edu (Neil Parker)]

In article <3mqkem$j6t@pith.uoregon.edu> I wrote,
>[...]
>While we're on the subject, I discovered a curious thing a while back--the code
>for the DOS 3.3 "BLOAD" command has provisions in it for dealing with the
>"second B" file type.  It's not complete, so BLOAD can't actually do
>anything useful with those files, but traces of a code stub are definitely
>there.  One wonders what they had in mind for it...

Oops.  Today I went back and checked the DOS 3.3 code, and discovered that
I was wrong about the above--the BLOAD handler contains no code to handle
anything except standard binary files.

There are, however, fragments of code in the LOAD handler for recognizing
the "second A" file type.  There's not enough code there to do anything
useful with "second A" files, but there is enough code to cause DOS 3.3 to
get really confused if you try to LOAD one--the system goes into an
infinite loop endlessly switching back and forth between Applesoft and
Integer BASIC, and you have to press RESET to recover (unless your language
card is empty or nonexistant--then it just says LANGUAGE NOT AVAILABLE).

               - Neil Parker
--
Neil Parker, nparker@{cie,cie-2}.uoregon.edu, http://cie-2.uoregon.edu/~nparker

                     "Bad move, Neil!"  -- The Tick