hcj@lzaz.ATT.COM (HC Johnson) (11/30/89)
Has anyone run the Prodogy info system for MAC on Spectre GCR? Howard C. Johnson ATT Bell Labs att!lzaz!hcj hcj@lzaz.att.com
Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com (12/07/89)
HOward C. Johnson asked if anyone had gotten the Prodigy software for the Mac to run under Spectre emulation... A friend of mine investigated this very question, and found that the Prodigy software, which ran perfectly on a real Mac, wouldn't run on his Spectre. I don't know exactly what the problem was, but my friend was quite disappointed. We've both used the IBM version of Prodigy under the pc-ditto emulator, and while it runs, it's far too slow to be useful.. we'd looked forward to the Mac version since Spectre runs Mac software at full speed (or better). Unfortunately, it seems destined not to be... BobR
pa1323@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Some call me...Tim) (12/08/89)
In article <24790@cup.portal.com> Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com writes: >HOward C. Johnson asked if anyone had gotten the Prodigy software for the >Mac to run under Spectre emulation... > >A friend of mine investigated this very question, and found that the >Prodigy software, which ran perfectly on a real Mac, wouldn't run on >his Spectre. I don't know exactly what the problem was, but my friend was >quite disappointed. ... I ran Prodigy on my friend's GCR, and it worked fine--AFTER we put the GCR into MacPlus mode (alternate- +). It also needs system 4.1 or newer, I believe. Tim Mensch. (Waiting for the local computer store to get in some more GCR's... They ran out QUITE fast...)
dsmall@well.UUCP (David Small) (12/10/89)
The base question asks if Mac Prodigy online software runs on Spectre. [I hope no one minds me quickly summarizing the question like this, rather than quoting 15 lines with indenting. If I'm breaking a custom, let me know, okay? I'm no USENET whiz]. Right now, at this second, at present, not in the future, Prodigy doesn't work on the Spectre. The reason is that it is closely tied to the Mac hardware architecture, and breaks numerous Mac programming rules. For instance, it "lives" at IPL=7 (the eyebrows of everyone at Atari just went up) and thus ignores keyboard interrupts. We've spent quite some time chasing it with the Zax incircuit emulator, since nothing else can penetrate it. That's the bad news. The good news is that it DOES work on the AMAX if you hack a memory location. If memory serves, you need to change _SCSIflag to $80. (Memory may not serve -- I would call ReadySoft). This means it has to be very close to working on Spectre. So please don't take this to mean it will never work. For all I know, it may come up tomorrow. In fact, I think it's time for me to give Simon Douglas at AMAX a call, and see if he can tell me what's wrong.... We will announce it when it starts working. -- thanks, Dave / Gadgets by Small p.s. I've wondered if the numerous replies I write are getting obnoxious to other Net users, many of which could care less about Mac emulation. Those I can answer by mail, I do, but many are of public interest and need posting here. Would you prefer if I "batched them up" and answered several questions at once? Of course, that would break the subject thread that "rn" uses ... any other solutions / suggestions / comments are more than welcome! Send to the above address ...
dsmall@well.UUCP (David Small) (12/12/89)
The basenote talks about Prodigy not working under Spectre. Bob, don't give up hope on Prodigy. It's already running under AMAX, the Amiga Mac emulator; tweaking a flag called SCSIflag to a different value is required. We've been chasing it with our in-circuit emulator, the only equipment that will penetrate Prodigy, and trying to figure what's wrong. The program basically boots, then freezes. The ZAX tells us the interrupt level has been set to 7, which locks out all interrupts, and it stays there. Not very many ROM calls are made -- they are mostly "what time is it?" calls. I *think* --I don't know -- that Prodigy takes over the whole machine, polling for keyboard input, serial input, doing serial output. Prodigy has been most helpful with us and we've dug our way through management there to some of the programmers. I imagine what it'll boil down to is determining exactly what part of the Mac's architecture they're dependent on, and hacking around it. So, please don't say it's not ever going to happen, ok? It might even be up by the end of the year; it's been a priority project here. -- thanks, dave / Gadgets "The only people who don't follow the Mac programming rules are those that made up the rules."