On 17 Feb 99, at 3:50, Larry Atlow wrote:

> As the machine reboots it uses various areas of memory.  Some
> software will initialize the memory it uses to a known state and
> other software will not.  If the memory is NOT initialized to a known
> state and the software just uses the values it finds there, then the
> program's actions will be unpredictable.  It would depend on how the
> software is written. I don't know how much system software or other
> software you use at startup is written in this way, but it would make
> a difference.

  This is true of virtually all software, virtually anywhere.  It's
possible to write software that *assumes* that its data memory will be
initialized for it to all zeros, and if the OS doesn't automatically do
this then the program will appear to work only on a freshly powered-up
machine.  Such software should never make it through QA to release....


David G

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