I wrote:
> Suppose you're trying to market a PC clone. How
successful will you be
> if some piece of popular software for the PC won't run
on your clone,
> because that software depends on direct calls into the
ROM, or direct
> access to tables in the ROM (e.g., the character
generator)? Back in
> those days, *lots* of software did wacky things like
that.
Jim wrote:
> Yes, but *why*? I am getting to be what I consider a
pretty decent
"Why" doesn't matter. The fact is that if you're
a company trying
to sell a BIOS to clone makers, and it doesn't work with
some even
modestly popular software, the clone makers aren't going to
buy it.
It's a business issue, not a technical issue. You could
decry the
practice of using unsupported entry points until you were
blue in
the face, but it wouldn't convince anyone to buy your BIOS.
Eric
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