Be Humerous

I think Tech Documentation has become more bland (and sometimes less useful) in recent years. As an example of really well written documentation, I was just leafing through the first edition of the Be Developers Guide (were there any other editions?). If you must know, I was having a tidy up of my apartment before an annual inspection ;o)

The Be API and it's documentation are phenominally well written. I also spotted the following amusing functions in the Kernel Kit:

is_computer_on()

int32 is_computer_on(void)

Returns 1 if the computer is on. If the computer isn't on, the value returned by this function is undefined.

is_computer_on_fire()

double is_computer_on_fire(void)

Returns the temperature of the motherboard if the computer is currently on fire. Smoldering doesn't count. If the computer isn't on fire, the function returns some other value.

The documentation doesn't specify what type of sensor the Be hardware uses to detect combustion ;)

On the same page, the enum typedef for platform_type includes some unusual platforms ...

typedef enum {
    B_BEBOX_PLATFORM = 0,
    B_MAC_PLATFORM,
    B_AT_CLONE_PLATFORM,
    B_ENIAC_PLATFORM,
    B_APPLE_II_PLATFORM,
    B_CRAY_PLATFORM,
    B_LISA_PLATFORM,
    B_TI_994A_PLATFORM,
    B_TIMEX_SINCLAIR_PLATFORM,
    B_ORAC_1_PLATFORM,
    B_HAL_PLATFORM,
} platform_type;

I haven't tried it, but I really don't think the BeOS would work at all well on a Timex Sinclair (see is_computer_on_fire()).

So can we deduce that the documentor HAS tried the other platforms? =)

05:16 AM, 25 Jan 2005 by Mark Aufflick Permalink | Short Link | Comments (1)