Re: Virus-IBMs crashing all around me...

[Eric Jacobs <no@no.no>]

Dave Althoff wrote:
> 
> Nathan Mates (nathan@visi.com) wrote:
> : In article <5k6cuu$6d@freenet-news.carleton.ca>,
> : Michael Elliott <cv985@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote:
> : > At least we don't put up with "General Protection Fault" on the GS.
> 
> :    Yeah, dialog boxes are for wimps. A simple beep and the keyboard
> : no longer functioning (or better yet, locked mouse pointer) should be
> : enough for anyone to figure out what went wrong.
> 
> Worse:  ">>BOINK!!<<" which is easy to miss in a noisy room, but the mouse
> pointer *doesn't* freeze because the interrupt driven mouse pointer
> routine is still working, and the display is still in SHR mode...but the
> main program loop has crashed and if you could see the text screen, it
> would be sitting in the System Monitor...

My favorite is when I have some stupid mistake in a memory handler routine and the screen
spontaneously changes to an exotic double lo-res picture, the speaker begins clicking
and the 5 1/4 drive comes on, inevitably erasing an entire track of whatever disk
happened to be in there. It's then when I pound on Ctl-reset, notice a strange little
delay at the "Apple IIGS" screen. Then I realize all of the little miscellany that I
keep on my ram disk and never back up has gone to Bit Heaven...

Thanks, but I'd rather have General Protection Fault, in all honesty. Hardware exceptions
are annoying on platforms where the operating system and programs are designed
carelessly. But even us GS programmers aren't perfect (at least not ALL of the time :)
I'd rather have a couple of faults watching over my programs as they run than have the
wonderful feeling of "Ok, how much work did I lose THIS time??"

-ej