Re: Computing Editorial (please read)

["Dave Althoff, Jr." <dalloff@gcfn.org>]

David Wilson <david@uow.edu.au> wrote:
: "Dave Althoff, Jr." <dalloff@gcfn.org> writes:
:>While defending GOTO, I wrote this code stub--
: 
:>: 1000 PRINT CHR$(4);"PR#3":PRINT:PRINT
:>: 1005 HOME:POKE 36,35:PRINT "Main menu:"
: 
:>I just realized that in two lines there are workarounds for two 
:>different undocumented Apple ][e firmware 'features'...
: 
:>Maybe that's why Microsoft can't seem to fix their bugs.  You live with 
:>them long enough, you internalize the workarounds...
: 
:>a) In the original Apple ][e firmware, if you did a PR#3 to start the 
:>   80-column display, sometimes a VTAB instruction would not work 
:>   properly unless you printed something to the screen first.
: 
:>b) HTAB did not work on the original ][e 80-column firmware.
: 
: You cannot blame MS for those two bugs - the //e 80 col firmware is all
: Apple's fault :-).

I wasn't trying to blame Microsoft for those; I was merely using Apple's 
failure and the fact that I, as an Applesoft programmer had internalized 
the workaround, as a potential excuse for why Microsoft hadn't fixed 
their bugs.

But then my logic is obviously flawed, as Apple *did* fix the 80-column 
firmware.  

On the other hand, DOS 3.3's APPEND command still doesn't work, and it 
doesn't work badly enough that I choose not to use it in ProDOS either.  
8-)  (I also think leaving MON out of BASIC.SYSTEM was a mistake...)
 
: P.S. In my OSI Superboard BASIC there is a bug in the error message printing
: of BASIC. The errors are two characters long and terminated by having bit 7
: of the last character set. The code that actually prints the errors however
: uses the fact that they are all two bytes long and forgets to clear bit 7
: of the 2nd char resulting in error messages where the 2nd char is a graphic
: symbol. Not sure if this is an OSI bug or MS.

Whoops!  8-)  Of course, in the Apple ][ world, bit 7 had better be set 
for display...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
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