Re: GUPP 1.03 GS Patch Program Released

[nathan@parka.winternet.com (Nathan Mates)]

In article <4t4ad5$5f9@opal.southwind.net>,
Scott Weierich <scottw@onyx.southwind.net> wrote:
>Nathan Mates (nathan@parka.winternet.com) wrote:
>: Well, another couple of days, another GUPP version. This one patches
>: [... rest snipped]

>I have been away for a while and would like to know if you can tell us 
>"exactly" what all GUPP will do for us (me)?! Thanks!!

   What my Grand Unified Patch Program (GUPP) does "exactly" is fix
bugs in certain pieces of software for the GS. From the readme file
included with the archive, here's the descriptions of the bugs it
toasts:

version 1.0:
Font Manager 6.0.1- Bugs that could cause crashing, hanging, or
  erratic behavior when the "Choose Font" Dialog is on the screen,
  both within Teach 6.0.1 and when no sizes of a font are available.
GS/OS Device Dispatcher 6.0.1- Refuses to make a call to a device
  driver not present in ram; safely returns with an error.
Finder 6.0.1- Fixes an unrelocated instruction that can cause
  memory trashing, crashes, etc.
Window Manger 6.0.1- Fixes a problem where it dumps a block from
  memory then tries to read from that block
GNO/ME 2.0.4 Kernel- Fixes a block size calculation for pathname
  buffers that could cause memory corruption.
TMTerm 1.1- Fixes a memory trashing bug
NiftyList 3.4- Forces it not to cache program names-- under certain
  timing conditions, could make NL display garbage on screen.

version 1.01:
GNO/ME 2.0.4 Kernel- Fixes a bug where a byte of memory was zapped
  each time the Finder lauched a program, possibly other times. Also
  patches the 2.0.6 3/12/96 kernel beta, only available to qualified beta'ers
Pointless 2.0.3- Inserts a sanity check to prevent it from dumping
  blocks from memory and then writing to them. Not too serious a bug. 
GS/OS System 6.0.1- Experimental patch to prevent writing to buffers
  after deallocating them. This causes no problems for me, but I'm not
  totally sure on it. The patch is _not_ active unless you take
  special measures to activate it.

version 1.02:
Finder 6.0.1: Fixes a bug where the Finder could go off the end of a
  rBundle/Icon file list and trash memory. Patch clamps it to the
  blocks it's parsing.
Window Manager 6.0.1: Does the same as the patch for 1.0, but now
  works on ROM 3 GSs also. Thanks to James Sanford for providing the
  memory locations of the parallel set of code.

version 1.03:
6.0.1's Pascal FST didn't recognize disks with punctuation in the
  volume names. Fixed.
Finder 6.0.1 patch from 1.02 slowed down the system a bit. Sped it
  up.   

   GUPP obsoletes and replaces the 'FixFontMgr601' patch program, as
well as the 'FixKern204B' patch program, written by me. It fixes a lot
of 6.0.1 bugs that can make the system unstable or crash, which is a
_good thing_, in my opinion. [Most to all of the serious bugs on the
list above (except for the Pascal FST one) caused at least one crash
on my GS. Won't happen anymore]

   All this for a small init that uses only 5K on disk. Freeware.

Nathan Mates
--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~nathan/      <*>
# What are the facts? Again and again and again-- what are the _facts_?
# Shun wishful thinking, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors
# think-- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places?  -R.A. Heinlein