TOLLIVER%ORN.MFENET@LLL-MFE.ARPA (11/25/86)
Regarding the TPU bug that caused and access violation:
Something like:
illegal_tpu_variable := "ab)" or ""
blows TPU's mind.
First, it sure is an illegal variable, alright. But it shouldn't cause TPU
to die.
Interestingly, if the DEC-supplied EVE is used with some tpu command file,
any command file at all seems to work, then a different reason mask, virtual
address, PC, and PSL are given. And you first get a message that says
something like "data type mismatch at line 25185".
More interestingly, if I try the same illegal statement using my extended
version of EVE, then I just get two error messages--one about line 25185
and the other says something like "illegal opcode at line 11". My extended
EVE is just an extension--it certainly doesn't (intentionally) do any kind
of error handling that is not built in to TPU.
As time goes on, more and more TPU bugs are discovered. We can only hope
that they will get fixed in the next release--or the next, or...