Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ncar!oddjob!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!a.cs.uiuc.edu!p.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies
From: gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Microsoft cuts corners, actuall
Message-ID: <76000278@p.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 19 Aug 88 14:59:00 GMT
References: <6766@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu>
Lines: 18
Nf-ID: #R:umn-cs.cs.umn.edu:6766:p.cs.uiuc.edu:76000278:000:925
Nf-From: p.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies    Aug 19 09:59:00 1988


I heard that Microsoft had a "pseudo language" interpreter they used
to write their software (e.g. Excel).  This was something like a
pascal P-code interpreter.  The interpreter supposedly saved a lot of
memory (hence MS-Word runs in 220K).  But to do this, they had to use
the upper bits of each 32-bit pointer for extra data.  This is fine on
an MS-DOS machine, which is physically incapable of accessing more
than 1Mb of memory, but kills you on a macintosh.

So the Excel problem wasn't actually sloppiness -- Microsoft was
trying to write innovative software that used very little memory, and
got bit by 1 Mb+ machines.  Wasn't Excel released for 128K machines?
Then the software DID last for 2 generations of hardware..... pretty
good...


Don Gillies, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Illinois
1304 W. Springfield, Urbana, Ill 61801      
ARPA: gillies@cs.uiuc.edu   UUCP: {uunet,ihnp4,harvard}!uiucdcs!gillies