IBM ROM BASIC or lack thereof

From: Glen Goodwin <acme_ent_at_bellsouth.net>
Date: Tue Oct 2 00:00:45 2001

Tony Duell wrote:

> Since they never did provide BASIC they had to make INT 18 do something
> (remember an application program could, in theory, call that interrupt).
> Since that interrupt should have entered ROM BASIC, the most sensible
> thing to do was to print that there was no ROM BASIC and then halt the
> CPU.

Since "they never did provide BASIC" then there was *always* "no ROM
BASIC." That's like stopping the machine with a message stating "no
printer." Why not display something understandable to a common user, such
as "no bootable device?"

Glen
0/0
Received on Tue Oct 02 2001 - 00:00:45 BST