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Conference hydra::amiga_v1

Title:	AMIGA NOTES
Notice:	Join us in the NEW conference - HYDRA::AMIGA_V2
Moderator:	HYDRA::MOORE

Created:	Sat Apr 26 1986
Last Modified:	Wed Feb 05 1992
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	5378
Total number of notes:	38326

385.0. "Kickstart Write Protection" by WORDS2::BURTON (What world is this anyway?) Thu Mar 19 1987 12:13

                  
         
         
         I'm writing an assembly language subroutine for a C program.
         I'm having real trouble with it and keep getting the Guru. I
         have been rebooting by powering down and restarting the
         machine.  I was worried that the assembly program was possible
         overwriting the Kickstart code and I wouldn't find out about
         it until it did something irreversible (like trash a disk).
         Then I remembered that the Kickstart is write protected. Does
         anyone know how the Amiga turns on the write protection? Do
         they just poke a memory location?  Can the protection be
         disabled? 
         
         Second, does anyone have any suggestions on a good debugger?
         Right now I keep reassembling and put a RTS at different
         points until I don't get a Guru.  I've found where I'm getting
         a Guru but I don't know why. 
         
         BTW, I bought the 2meg Microbotics expansion from Abel Supply
         (mentioned elsewhere in these notes). I got fast service
         (ordered on a Thursday and got it the following Tuesday).  It
         sure does speed up everything.  It's GREAT!! 
         
         
         			Thanks,
         			Chris

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
385.1		SQM::JMSYNGE	James M Synge, VMS Performance Anal.	`Thu Mar 19 1987 16:15`	5
	Kickstart is write protected. When it has been loaded, it accesses a particular location in memory. This is detected by a PAL which write protects the Kickstart until powerdown. There was some discussion of how to bypass this on USENET last fall.
385.2	Metascope	TLE::RMEYERS	Randy Meyers	`Thu Mar 19 1987 18:03`	15
	Re: .0 Don't worry about Kickstart getting corrupted. Cycling the power on your machine isn't good for you (it take extra time) and isn't good for it (you have been waiting 10 seconds between power off and power on for the capacitors to drain haven't you? It is in the manual). Metadigm, Inc. makes a good debugger named MetaScope. It is a multiwindowing symbolic assembly language debugger that is compatible with Lattice C (in fact, Lattice now bundles it with their $300 compiler package). MetaScope does not interfere with multitasking, and "According to Webster" in Byte named MetaScope the most useful utility for the Amiga. It costs about $80 -$90. The Memory Location carries MetaScope, as does the big mail order houses.