On 02/04/2008, at 12:17 AM, Jay Reeve wrote:
>>     A5A5 is a hexadecimal value or shortcut for 0101 0101 0101 0101  
>> in binary.
> That would be 0x5555. 0xA5 is 10100101 in binary, or 165 in decimal.  
> In an uninitialized string var, it is easy to spot because it  
> appears this way:


Back in the dim dark ages of programming, wasn't it set so the if a  
pointer pointed to 0xA5A5, and MacsBug was installed, then a trip into  
MacsBug would be invoked, and because you were at 0xA5A5 then you knew  
you had a pointer that hadn't been initialized?

Pete...                          (the other one)

(who's memory is questionable at the best of times and very likely to  
point to 0xA5A5)