[Parted-maintainers] Bug#239816: bug#16134: libparted Atari partition table support

[Michael Schmitz]

Philip,

> On 12/17/2013 2:17 PM, Thorsten Glaser wrote:
>> I thought so too, but it turns out that the Atari IDE interface is
>> literally wired “the wrong way”, so you do need to bswap the entire
>> disc – not just partition table or filesystem metadata – but also
>> user data – before exchanging it between any other sy‐ stem with
>> IDE and an Atari. Don’t mind that detail.
>
> Oh wow.  That's some serous dain bramage...

Yep, that's seriously borked up. Someone traded sanity and portability 
for speed (originally these machines did have a 16 MHz 68030 only). 
Can't have been delusions to be the only game in town at that stage 
(the Amigas and Macs already had 040 processors in use by that time), 
so it's even more amazing.

Cheers,

	Michael