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From: pes@bath63.ux63.bath.ac.uk (Paul Smee)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Can you tell when GEM has booted?
Message-ID: <655@bath63.ux63.bath.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 11-Dec-86 10:19:19 EST
Article-I.D.: bath63.655
Posted: Thu Dec 11 10:19:19 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Dec-86 05:08:56 EST
Reply-To: pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Paul Smee)
Distribution: comp.sys.atari.st
Organization: AUCC c/o University of Bath
Lines: 30
Keywords: AUTO


I have an application for which I need (essentially) a GEM program which can
be run automatically on boot and reset.  Of course, GEM isn't around when
AUTO folder things get run.  It feels to me like what I need to do is
write a program which can be put into the AUTO folder, which will hang itself
onto the vsync or hsync interrupts, and then sit patiently until GEM has been
started, and kick off the application.  This means that it's got to be able
to tell that GEM has started.

So, what I think I need is a location, somewhere, which I can garbage (or which
the system itself garbages on boot/reset, and which is set to a recognisable
value at some point late in the startup of GEM itself, after the GEM facilities
have become available.

Has anyone found such a variable?  (Unofficial 'works under version XXX'
bootleg solutions would be acceptable at this point -- though a 'documented
and guaranteed low-mem location would be preferable, of course.)

If I get desperate, I might try the video buffer, but that's a bit shaky since
other AUTO folder programs could move the video buffer between 'looks', and
because other AUTO folder programs might *use* the video buffer -- and so
might by chance put values in which look just like the GEM desktop in whatever
area I choose to look at...

Variables which are set during the GEM start-up, a more-or-less predictable
amount of time before GEM has moved in, would also be OK.  I could live with
something like 'wait until location 1AFC is set to FFFEAB02, and then wait
2 more vsyncs'...

 Paul