jhs@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA (07/31/87)
Re:Owen Alexander's question, I haven't the faintest idea ("Keine Ahnung!",
as the Germans say) whether or not FROST BASIC would be compatible with
SpartaDOS. It of course does NOT use the RAM under the ROM since there is
no such RAM on an 800. Also, it DOES boot up and appear to run, although
I certainly haven't exercised all the features, with the standard 800XL
O/S. You might possibly run afoul of some non standard O/S calls, but
at least a lot of things will work.
If you do run into such problems, using the OMNIVIEW O/S is a possible way
to get compatibility (acts like the Translator Disk). However, at least
one thing DOES NOT work right with OMNIVIEW, either with FROST BASIC or
with Turbo BASIC XL: Fractional exponents like 2^.5 crash with "ERROR 11,
OVERFLOW" as the error message. This does not happen with the Atari O/S.
I never got around to fixing this bug but it should be possible, just a
matter of finding where Turbo BASIC is calling the FP routines illegally
and patching it.
I'd say you have a fighting chance that it will run with SpartaDOS on an
unmodified XL/XE.
-John S.knutsen@aramis.rutgers.edu (Mark Knutsen) (08/01/87)
In article <8707310032.AA20443@mitre-bedford.ARPA> jhs@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA writes: > You might possibly run afoul of some non standard O/S calls, <running Turbo Basic on an 800> but > at least a lot of things will work. > > If you do run into such problems, using the OMNIVIEW O/S is a possible way > to get compatibility (acts like the Translator Disk). However, at least > one thing DOES NOT work right with OMNIVIEW, either with FROST BASIC or > with Turbo BASIC XL: Fractional exponents like 2^.5 crash with "ERROR 11, > OVERFLOW" as the error message. This does not happen with the Atari O/S. This looks like a good place to recommend the Boss XL operating system chip for 800XL owners. It also acts as a translator, SpartaDOS runs under it, and I haven't experienced any stray bugs like those described above for OmniView. I have my Boss installed with a public-domain OS switch (Boss piggybacked on the Atari OS, little switch on the back of the XL selects which OS to use). Since the Boss has a built-in software coldstart, I can always recover the contents of a RAMdisk should the computer lock up. I simply switch operating systems and hit System Reset while holding Start down, then SR again. Machine reboots without powering down, and I can reinit the RAMdisk without formatting it. (yay SpartaDOS!) --Mark Knutsen -- _________________________________ Jersey\\\\\\\\ _____________________________ ARPA: knutsen@rutgers.edu | \\\Atari\\\\\\ | GEnie GE Mail: M.KNUTSEN UUCP: {...}!rutgers.edu!knutsen | \\\\\\Computer | The JACG BBS: (201)298-0161 --------------------------------- \\\\\\\\\Group -----------------------------