Steven Campbell wrote:

>What I wanted to know is how helpful has Apple been in providing
>technical information about the low-level hooks that the MacOS uses to
>talk to Mac hardware, such as NuBus interrupts in the Quadra series, or
>the way they talk to the NCR 53c96 in the Quadras.
>My suspicions tell me they haven't been too helpful at all.
>What I don't understand is how could it hurt them to provide this
>information to us?

Before we start a mass movement to push Cupertino into the Pacific, we 
should consider the possibility that even Apple may not have the detailed 
info we'd like.  I've worked for a couple of major computer/electronics 
firms and currently work in the Defense Industry. In every case there 
were always detailed requirements and procedures to write, archive and 
maintain documentation on all developement efforts.  Usually these 
procedures were followed and all SQE and SCM requirements were met along 
the way.  Unfortunately it's not until the information needs to be 
retrieved that one discovers how successful the original effort really 
was. 

I recently had a chance to test this by making a request for some 
information at work.  I talked with the programmers and engineers who had 
done the original work and confirmed the existance of what I needed.  I 
got the names of the people who were responsible for implementing the 
original archive procedures and asked them to retrieve the data.  They 
found it impossible to do!  We all know the info exists, know who wrote 
it up, know what safe it's stored in, but we can't find it in the massive 
pile of data that's there.

It wouldn't surprise me one bit if Apple isn't in the same boat on the 
information we'd like to get from them.  But possibily they've learned 
some hard lessons by now, after all aren't they now sharing information 
with OSF on the PowerMacs?

Food for thought for those who haven't experienced some of this in their 
work environments.
-bob