Title:			OVFIX1.PRG
Supplier:		Jim DeClercq <jimd@mugwump.eng.wayne.edu>
Machine:		Atari ST, STe, Falcon, TT
Directory:		micros/atari/tos/o/o198
Date mounted/updated:	02/11/94
File names:		ovfix1.prg

Description:

The phantom typist TOS patch

There is a program for use with First Word, to save the file
every few minutes.  In the new Marcel, there is a feature to save
the file every few hundred keystrokes.  Why these things exist is
a random and unfindable error in the TOS routine for initializing
the keyboard, which causes a repetition of what was last typed,
just before the machine crashes, and the latest typing is lost.

The only way to avoid this, apparently, is to simply re-write that
part of TOS, without regard for length, and hope it corrects the
situation.  I have been told that Let 'M Fly and one or more
alternate desktops incorporate routines which do this.

The only instructions are that it should run before any alternate
operating system runs. Like CHKDISK, which is in most archives
without objection from Atari, it was part of a disk from
Atari.  OVFIX1.PRG was on a beta test version of some multitasking
system version which is now in the public domain.

Those who do a lot of typing on an Atari ST, and maybe TT, have
met this form of crash.  Since the cause cannot be found, there is
no way to fix it. Those who mostly play games have never met this
bug, and those who mostly do desktop publishing have enough
crashes when leaving the editor that any other cause is
overwhelmed.
